Caroll
A masculine name of French origin meaning "Free man".
Name Census estimates that about 976 living Americans carry the first name Caroll. It appears on both sides of the gender split, with 62.7% of registrations being female. The average person named Caroll today is around 72 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Caroll births was 1946 (86 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Caroll. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
Key insights
- • Caroll sits in rare territory as a truly gender-neutral name, given to boys and girls in near-equal numbers.
- • The typical person named Caroll is about 72 years old today, placing it firmly among the names of earlier generations. Most living Carolls were born before 1964.
People living today
976
~ 1 in 351,183 Americans
Peak year
1946
86 babies that year
Average age
72
years old
1979 SSA rank
#5,454
Tracked since 1912
Census
Caroll in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 1,679 people with the first name Caroll, which placed it at #8,605 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#8,605
National first-name rank
People counted
1.7K
1,679 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.6
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
69.0% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Caroll
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Caroll is White at 69.0%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (13.9%) and Black (12.7%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Caroll described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Caroll at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White69.0% · 1,159
- Hispanic or Latino13.9% · 233
- Black or African American12.7% · 213
- Two or more races2.4% · 40
- Asian and Pacific Islander1.3% · 22
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.7% · 12
Gender
Gender distribution for Caroll
Caroll is one of the more evenly split names in the SSA data. Of the 2,078 total registrations, 776 (37.3%) were male and 1,302 (62.7%) were female.
Caroll as a male name
- Ranked #5,454 in 1979
- 6 male births in 1979
- Peak: 1939 (26 births)
Caroll as a female name
- Ranked #16,976 in 2005
- 5 female births in 2005
- Peak: 1946 (65 births)
2020 Census snapshot
The 2020 Census sex table shows Caroll on both sides of the split. Of the 1,684 people counted with this name, 384 were male (22.8%) and 1,300 were female (77.2%).
Popularity
Caroll: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Caroll from the 1910s through to the 2000s, spanning 10 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1940s, with 639 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1940s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Caroll by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Caroll during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Carolls live
The SSA's state-level files cover 11 states and territories. California, Illinois, Michigan recorded the most babies named Caroll, while Wisconsin, Kentucky, Indiana recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 14 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Caroll
The name Caroll is a variant spelling of the traditionally masculine given name Carroll. Its origins can be traced back to an Old Norman word meaning "free man" or "peasant." The name likely emerged in England during the Middle Ages, following the Norman Conquest of 1066.
Historically, the name Carroll was sometimes used as a surname, derived from the Anglo-Norman word "carrol" or "caruel," meaning a cart or wagon driver. However, its usage as a first name likely arose from its association with freedom and independence.
One of the earliest recorded examples of the name Caroll dates back to the 13th century, when a man named Caroll de Bure was mentioned in the Hundred Rolls of Norfolk, England, in 1273. This document was a census-like record of landholders and their holdings.
In the realm of literature, the name Caroll gained prominence through the works of Lewis Carroll, the pen name of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832-1898), the acclaimed English writer known for his beloved classics "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking-Glass."
Other notable individuals who bore the name Caroll include:
1. Caroll Spinney (1933-2019), an American puppeteer best known for portraying the iconic Sesame Street characters Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch.
2. Caroll Shelby (1923-2012), an American automotive designer, race car driver, and entrepreneur who founded the Shelby American automobile company.
3. Caroll Borland (1914-2002), an American actress and dancer who appeared in several horror films during the 1930s and 1940s, including "Mark of the Vampire" and "The Ghost of Frankenstein."
4. Caroll Michels (1913-1991), an American lawyer and legal scholar who served as the chairman of the Legal Services Corporation, an organization dedicated to providing legal assistance to low-income individuals.
5. Caroll Herman Little (1872-1958), an American businessman and philanthropist who founded the Higbee Company, a prominent department store chain in Cleveland, Ohio.
While the name Caroll may not be as common today as it once was, its historical significance and associations with freedom, literature, and notable individuals have left an enduring legacy.
People
Caroll + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Caroll as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with C
Other first names starting with C with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Caroll: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Caroll?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 976 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Caroll going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 351,183 US residents.
Is Caroll a common name?
We classify Caroll as "Very Rare". It ranks above 89.9% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 2,078 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Caroll most popular?
The single biggest year for Caroll was 1946, when 86 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Caroll is about 72 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Caroll in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 1,679 people with the name Caroll, or 0.56 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #8,605 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Caroll in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Caroll?
The 2020 Census sex table shows Caroll on both sides of the split. Of the 1,684 people counted with this name, 384 were male (22.8%) and 1,300 were female (77.2%). The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Caroll?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Caroll is White at 69.0%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (13.9%) and Black (12.7%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Caroll most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Caroll in the 2020 Census, accounting for 69.0% (1,159 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Caroll in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Caroll a female name?
Yes, 62.7% of people registered as Caroll in the SSA data are female. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Is Caroll still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Caroll in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Caroll can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.
How many people have the name Caroll?
For a quick modern take, check how many people share the name Caroll on our sister site HowManyOfMe.org.