Charles
A masculine name of Germanic origin meaning "man, freeman".
Name Census estimates that about 1,296,413 living Americans carry the first name Charles. It sits at #51 in the overall ranking, outside the top 50 but still well-represented. It is a predominantly male name (99.5% of registrations). The average person named Charles today is around 57 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Charles births was 1947 (40,917 babies). In terms of living bearers, it sits close to Anthony (1,238,180).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Charles. 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.
For a British comparison, Name Census UK has a UK baby-name profile for Charles with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Although Charles is used almost entirely for boys, the SSA data does show 12,466 girls registered with the name since 1880.
People living today
1.3M
~ 1 in 264 Americans
Peak year
1947
40,917 babies that year
Average age
57
years old
2024 SSA rank
#51
Tracked since 1880
Census
Charles in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 1,207,975 people with the first name Charles, which placed it at #17 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
#17
National first-name rank
People counted
1.2M
1,207,975 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
400.0
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
79.5% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Charles
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Charles is White at 79.5%. The next largest groups are Black (12.7%) and Hispanic (3.1%). 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 Charles 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 Charles at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White79.5% · 960,218
- Black or African American12.7% · 153,781
- Hispanic or Latino3.1% · 37,090
- Two or more races2.9% · 34,997
- Asian and Pacific Islander1.2% · 14,328
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.6% · 7,561
Gender
Gender distribution for Charles
Out of the 2,441,151 babies given the name Charles since 1880, 99.5% were registered as male. The name sits firmly on the male side of the spectrum, with only a handful of female registrations across the entire dataset.
Charles as a male name
- Ranked #51 in 2024
- 5,593 male births in 2024
- Peak: 1947 (40,779 births)
Charles as a female name
- Ranked #11,287 in 2024
- 8 female births in 2024
- Peak: 1927 (303 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Charles appears almost entirely male. Of the 1,207,972 people counted with this name, 99.8% were male and only a very small share were female.
Popularity
Charles: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Charles from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 15 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1940s, with 363,226 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
Charles 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 Charles during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
| Decade | Male | Female | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1880s | 46,656 | 223 | 46,879 |
| 1890s | 36,848 | 236 | 37,084 |
| 1900s | 36,184 | 244 | 36,428 |
| 1910s | 173,534 | 884 | 174,418 |
| 1920s | 298,031 | 2,160 | 300,191 |
| 1930s | 303,215 | 1,774 | 304,989 |
| 1940s | 361,760 | 1,466 | 363,226 |
| 1950s | 361,178 | 1,425 | 362,603 |
| 1960s | 249,388 | 1,289 | 250,677 |
| 1970s | 163,030 | 1,206 | 164,236 |
| 1980s | 131,905 | 999 | 132,904 |
| 1990s | 92,433 | 233 | 92,666 |
| 2000s | 75,331 | 161 | 75,492 |
| 2010s | 70,004 | 122 | 70,126 |
| 2020s | 29,188 | 44 | 29,232 |
Geography
Where Charles' live
The SSA's state-level files cover 51 states and territories. New York, Pennsylvania, Texas recorded the most babies named Charles, while Alaska, Nevada, Wyoming recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 45,422 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Charles
The name Charles has its origins in the Germanic language family, derived from the Old German words 'karl' meaning 'man' and 'hraið' meaning 'army' or 'warrior'. It was initially popularized as the moniker 'Carolus' in Latin during the Middle Ages.
Early historical references to the name can be found in the 8th century writings of the Frankish scholar and poet Paulinus of Aquileia. He documented the name as a descriptor of martial prowess and virtue among the Carolingian dynasty of Frankish kings.
One of the earliest and most renowned bearers of the name was Charlemagne (742-814), also known as Charles the Great. As the King of the Franks and the first ruler of the Holy Roman Empire, he played a pivotal role in shaping medieval European history and culture.
Another noteworthy Charles was Charles V (1500-1558), the Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain, who presided over a vast empire spanning much of Europe and the Americas during the 16th century.
In England, the name gained prominence with the reign of Charles I (1600-1649), who ruled as the King of England, Scotland, and Ireland from 1625 until his execution during the English Civil War. His son, Charles II (1630-1685), later restored the monarchy after the Interregnum period.
The name Charles also has a rich literary heritage, with acclaimed authors such as Charles Dickens (1812-1870), the renowned English novelist known for works like "A Tale of Two Cities" and "Great Expectations", and Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867), the influential French poet and critic who helped pioneer the modern poetry movement.
In the realm of science and philosophy, Charles Darwin (1809-1882) stands out as the celebrated English naturalist whose groundbreaking theory of evolution by natural selection revolutionized our understanding of the natural world.
Notable bearers
Famous people named Charles
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Charles Bail
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Charles Barton
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Charles Bickford
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Charles Boustany
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Charles Boyer
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Charles Bronson
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Charles Chaplin
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Charles Crichton
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Charles Dance
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Charles Darwin
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Charles Dent
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Charles Drew
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Charles Durning
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Charles Dutton
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Charles Goodyear
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Charles Grodin
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Charles Grosvenor
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Charles Herman
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Charles Johnson
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Charles Kaufman
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Charles Klausmeyer
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Charles Lamont
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Charles Laughton
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Charles Lindbergh
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Charles Mingus
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Charles Nichols
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Charles Pickering
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Charles Pierce
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Charles Rangel
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Charles Rogers
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Charles Schumer
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Charles Shyer
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Charles Smith
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Charles Starrett
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Charles Stone
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Charles Tillman
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Charles Vidor
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Charles Walters
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Charles Wilson
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Charles Windsor
People
Charles + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Charles 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
Charles: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Charles?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 1,296,413 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Charles 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 264 US residents.
Is Charles a common name?
We classify Charles as "Very Common". It ranks above 100% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 2,441,151 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Charles most popular?
The single biggest year for Charles was 1947, when 40,917 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Charles is about 57 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Charles in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 1,207,975 people with the name Charles, or 399.95 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #17 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 Charles 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 Charles?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Charles appears almost entirely male. Of the 1,207,972 people counted with this name, 99.8% were male and only a very small share were female. 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 Charles?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Charles is White at 79.5%. The next largest groups are Black (12.7%) and Hispanic (3.1%). 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 Charles most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Charles in the 2020 Census, accounting for 79.5% (960,218 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 Charles in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Charles a male name?
Yes, 99.5% of people registered as Charles in the SSA data are male. 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 Charles still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Charles 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 Charles 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 share the name Charles?
HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site, answers that with the living-bearer count in one glance.