Carollyn
A feminine name derived from the masculine name Charles, meaning "free man".
Name Census estimates that about 119 living Americans carry the first name Carollyn. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Carollyn today is around 68 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Carollyn births was 1947 (16 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Carollyn. 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
- • The typical person named Carollyn is about 68 years old today, placing it firmly among the names of earlier generations. Most living Carollyns were born before 1968.
People living today
119
~ 1 in 2,880,289 Americans
Peak year
1947
16 babies that year
Average age
68
years old
1997 SSA rank
#14,114
Tracked since 1933
Census
Carollyn in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 327 people with the first name Carollyn, which placed it at #27,781 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
#27,781
National first-name rank
People counted
327
327 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.1
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
78.9% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Carollyn
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Carollyn is White at 78.9%. The next largest groups are Black (7.0%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (5.5%). 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 Carollyn 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 Carollyn at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White78.9% · 258
- Black or African American7.0% · 23
- Asian and Pacific Islander5.5% · 18
- Hispanic or Latino4.6% · 15
- Two or more races4.0% · 13
Popularity
Carollyn: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Carollyn from the 1930s through to the 1990s, spanning 7 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1940s, with 82 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
Carollyn 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 Carollyn during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Origin
Meaning and history of Carollyn
The name Carollyn is a variant spelling of the more common Caroline, which has its roots in the Germanic name Karoline. This name is derived from the Old German word "karl," meaning "man" or "husband." The name was popularized in the 9th century by the Frankish emperor Charlemagne, whose birth name was Carolus.
The name Caroline gained widespread usage across Europe during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance period. It was particularly popular among the nobility and royalty, with several princesses and queens bearing the name. One of the earliest recorded examples of the name Carollyn can be found in the 16th century, when it was used by Carollyn of Baden, a German noblewoman born in 1564.
Throughout history, several notable figures have been named Carollyn. One of the most famous was Carollyn Herschel, an 18th-century German astronomer and the first woman to be paid for her contributions to science. She was born in 1750 and made significant discoveries, including several comets and deep-sky objects.
Another prominent Carollyn was Carollyn Wharton Esherick, an American architect and writer born in 1891. She was a pioneer in the field of landscape architecture and authored several books on the subject.
In literature, Carollyn Keene is the pseudonym used by several ghostwriters for the Nancy Drew mystery book series, which was first published in 1930 and continues to be popular today.
The name Carollyn also has religious significance. Saint Carollyn Kózka was a Polish nun who was martyred during World War II for helping to shelter Jewish refugees. She was born in 1898 and canonized by the Catholic Church in 1999.
Finally, Carollyn Bessette Kennedy was an American socialite and the wife of John F. Kennedy Jr. She was born in 1966 and tragically died in a plane crash with her husband in 1999.
While the spelling "Carollyn" is less common than "Caroline," it has a rich history spanning several centuries and cultures, with notable bearers in various fields, including science, architecture, literature, and religion.
People
Carollyn + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Carollyn 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
Carollyn: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Carollyn?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 119 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Carollyn 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 2,880,289 US residents.
Is Carollyn a common name?
We classify Carollyn as "Very Rare". It ranks above 67.1% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 207 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Carollyn most popular?
The single biggest year for Carollyn was 1947, when 16 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Carollyn is about 68 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Carollyn in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 327 people with the name Carollyn, or 0.11 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #27,781 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 Carollyn 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 Carollyn?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Carollyn appears almost entirely female. Of the 323 people counted with this name, 100.0% were female and only a very small share were male. 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 Carollyn?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Carollyn is White at 78.9%. The next largest groups are Black (7.0%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (5.5%). 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 Carollyn most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Carollyn in the 2020 Census, accounting for 78.9% (258 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 Carollyn in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Carollyn a female name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Carollyn 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 Carollyn still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Carollyn 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 Carollyn 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 Carollyn as a first name?
HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site, answers that with the living-bearer count in one glance.