Katalina
A feminine name of Greek origin meaning "pure and virtuous".
Name Census estimates that about 7,927 living Americans carry the first name Katalina. It sits at #439 in the overall ranking, outside the top 50 but still well-represented. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Katalina today is around 11 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Katalina births was 2024 (706 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Katalina. 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 Katalina with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Katalina is a relatively new arrival in the SSA data. The average bearer is just 11 years old, meaning it gained most of its traction in the last two decades.
People living today
7.9K
~ 1 in 43,239 Americans
Peak year
2024
706 babies that year
Average age
11
years old
2024 SSA rank
#439
Tracked since 1971
Census
Katalina in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 4,219 people with the first name Katalina, which placed it at #4,435 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
#4,435
National first-name rank
People counted
4.2K
4,219 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
1.4
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
Hispanic or Latino
69.6% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Katalina
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Katalina is Hispanic at 69.6%. The next largest groups are White (18.2%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (5.9%). 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 Katalina 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 Katalina at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- Hispanic or Latino69.6% · 2,937
- White18.2% · 766
- Asian and Pacific Islander5.9% · 251
- Two or more races3.3% · 140
- Black or African American2.1% · 89
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.9% · 36
Popularity
Katalina: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Katalina from the 1970s through to the 2020s, spanning 6 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2010s, with 3,328 total registrations. The name continues to be given at rates close to its all-time high, suggesting it has not yet fallen out of fashion.
Babies born per year
Decades
Katalina 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 Katalina during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Katalinas live
The SSA's state-level files cover 38 states and territories. Texas, California, Florida recorded the most babies named Katalina, while West Virginia, Hawaii, Arkansas recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 172 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Katalina
The name Katalina is derived from the ancient Greek name Aikaterine, which itself is a combination of the Greek words "katharos" meaning "pure" and "ennea" meaning "nine". The name Aikaterine is believed to have been coined in the 4th century AD, around the time of the early Christian church, as a name honoring the great Christian martyr Saint Catherine of Alexandria.
The name Katalina is the Spanish and Catalan variant of the name Katherine or Catherine. It first emerged as a popular name in Spain and the Spanish territories during the Middle Ages, likely influenced by the cult of veneration for Saint Catherine that had spread throughout Catholic Europe at that time. Records show examples of women named Katalina living in medieval Spain as early as the 12th century.
One of the earliest known bearers of the name Katalina was Katalina of Aragon, a 13th century Spanish noblewoman who served as the regent of the Kingdom of Aragon from 1276 to 1285 during the minority of her son, King Pedro III. Another notable Katalina from medieval Spain was Katalina of Lancaster, the Queen consort of Castile and Leon as the wife of King Henry III in the early 15th century.
As the Spanish Empire expanded in the 16th and 17th centuries, the name Katalina traveled to the Americas and other Spanish colonies, becoming commonplace among women of Spanish descent. A famous bearer was Katalina de Erauso, a 17th century Spanish noblewoman who escaped a convent and had many adventures while living as a man under the name Antonio de Erauso. She became known as the "Lieutenant Nun".
In Russian history, there was Princess Yekaterina Vorontsova-Dashkova (1743-1810), a prominent figure of the Russian Enlightenment era who served as the first female president of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The variant spelling Ekaterina also emerged in Russia due to the influence of the Greek Orthodox church.
Among other well-known bearers throughout European and Latin American history are the Dutch Golden Age painter Caterina van Hemessen (c. 1528-c. 1587), the Roman Catholic saint Catalina de Ricci of Florence (1522-1590), and Mexican Roman Catholic mystic Venerable Catalina de María Rodríguez (1823-1894).
People
Katalina + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Katalina as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with K
Other first names starting with K with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Katalina: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Katalina?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 7,927 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Katalina 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 43,239 US residents.
Is Katalina a common name?
We classify Katalina as "Rare". It ranks above 97.4% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 8,002 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Katalina most popular?
The single biggest year for Katalina was 2024, when 706 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Katalina is about 11 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Katalina in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 4,219 people with the name Katalina, or 1.40 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #4,435 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 Katalina 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 Katalina?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Katalina appears almost entirely female. Of the 4,219 people counted with this name, 99.8% 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 Katalina?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Katalina is Hispanic at 69.6%. The next largest groups are White (18.2%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (5.9%). 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 Katalina most often in the Census?
Hispanic is the largest reported group for people named Katalina in the 2020 Census, accounting for 69.6% (2,937 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 Katalina in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Katalina a female name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Katalina 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 Katalina still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Katalina 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 Katalina 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 Katalina as a first name?
You can see how many people have the name Katalina on our sister site HowManyOfMe.org — same data roots, lighter UI.