Charlotte
A feminine name of French origin meaning "petite and feminine".
Our analysis of Social Security Administration records puts the number of living Americans named Charlotte at approximately 293,609. That places it at #4 in the national ranking of first names. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Charlotte today is around 29 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Charlotte births was 2021 (13,375 babies). In terms of living bearers, it sits close to Kathryn (293,017).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Charlotte. 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 Charlotte with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Although Charlotte is used almost entirely for girls, the SSA data does show 762 boys registered with the name since 1880.
People living today
294K
~ 1 in 1,167 Americans
Peak year
2021
13,375 babies that year
Average age
29
years old
2024 SSA rank
#4
Tracked since 1880
Census
Charlotte in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 254,532 people with the first name Charlotte, which placed it at #212 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
#212
National first-name rank
People counted
255K
254,532 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
84.3
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
80.8% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Charlotte
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Charlotte is White at 80.8%. The next largest groups are Black (6.7%) and Hispanic (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 Charlotte 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 Charlotte at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White80.8% · 205,753
- Black or African American6.7% · 16,979
- Hispanic or Latino5.5% · 14,097
- Two or more races4.3% · 10,993
- Asian and Pacific Islander2.0% · 5,165
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.6% · 1,545
Gender
Gender distribution for Charlotte
Out of the 440,706 babies given the name Charlotte since 1880, 99.8% were registered as female. The name sits firmly on the female side of the spectrum, with only a handful of male registrations across the entire dataset.
Charlotte as a male name
- Ranked #6,888 in 2024
- 12 male births in 2024
- Peak: 1942 (24 births)
Charlotte as a female name
- Ranked #4 in 2024
- 12,552 female births in 2024
- Peak: 2021 (13,362 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Charlotte appears almost entirely female. Of the 254,532 people counted with this name, 99.9% were female and only a very small share were male.
Popularity
Charlotte: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Charlotte from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 15 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2010s, with 102,549 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2010s peak, Charlotte remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Charlotte 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 Charlotte during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Charlottes live
The SSA's state-level files cover 51 states and territories. California, New York, Texas recorded the most babies named Charlotte, while Wyoming, Alaska, Vermont recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 8,318 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Charlotte
The name Charlotte is derived from the French feminine diminutive form of the name Charles. It is a Germanic name, from the Old High German word "Karl" meaning "free man" or "manly." The name Charles also derives from the German name Karl, which was from the common adjective relating to the individual's make of being a "husband."
In the Late Antiquity period, the popularity of the name Charles was bolstered by its use in honor of Charlemagne, or Charles the Great, the King of the Franks who built a vast empire across western and central Europe in the 8th and 9th centuries. The feminine form Charlotte emerged in France in the Middle Ages, in the 12th century.
The earliest recorded example of the name Charlotte dates back to 1472 when it was used by Charlotte of Savoy, the second queen of King Louis XI of France. Another notable early bearer of the name was Charlotte of Albret, a 16th century French princess, who was the wife of Cesar Borgia and the subject of a famous portrait by Raphael.
In English history, one of the most prominent figures named Charlotte was Queen Charlotte, the wife of King George III. Born in 1744, she was instrumental in establishing many charitable organizations and cultural institutions in Britain during her reign as queen consort from 1761 until her death in 1818.
Other famous women named Charlotte throughout history include:
Charlotte Corday (1768-1793), the French revolutionary who assassinated the Jacobin leader Jean-Paul Marat during the Reign of Terror.
Charlotte Brontë (1816-1855), the English novelist and poet, best known for her classic novel Jane Eyre.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860-1935), the American feminist, writer, and social reformer whose works explored issues of gender and mental health.
Charlotte Cooper (1870-1966), the English tennis player who won five Wimbledon singles titles in the early 20th century.
Charlotte Salomon (1917-1943), the German-Jewish artist known for her autobiographical series of paintings called Life? or Theatre? created while in hiding during the Holocaust.
Notable bearers
Famous people named Charlotte
People
Charlotte + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Charlotte 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
Charlotte: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Charlotte?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 293,609 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Charlotte 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 1,167 US residents.
Is Charlotte a common name?
We classify Charlotte as "Common". It ranks above 99.8% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 440,706 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Charlotte most popular?
The single biggest year for Charlotte was 2021, when 13,375 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Charlotte is about 29 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Charlotte in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 254,532 people with the name Charlotte, or 84.27 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #212 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 Charlotte 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 Charlotte?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Charlotte appears almost entirely female. Of the 254,532 people counted with this name, 99.9% 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 Charlotte?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Charlotte is White at 80.8%. The next largest groups are Black (6.7%) and Hispanic (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 Charlotte most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Charlotte in the 2020 Census, accounting for 80.8% (205,753 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 Charlotte in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Charlotte a female name?
Yes, 99.8% of people registered as Charlotte 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 Charlotte still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Charlotte 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 Charlotte 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 common is the name Charlotte?
HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site, answers that with the living-bearer count in one glance.