Karen Is Tanking As A Name For America’s Little Girls

ACROSS AMERICA — Once upon a time in America, “Karen” was a perfectly acceptable, lovely name for baby girls.

But in 2020, Karen tanked to become the 831st most popular name, down from 660th the year prior. Of all the baby girls born in 2020, only 325 were named Karen, which represents 0.019 percent of all females born last year, according to the Social Security Administration.

The name Karen hasn’t been this unpopular since 1926.

But by midcentury, the name Karen surged in popularity. It made the top 10 names from 1951 to 1968, and was the third-most popular in 1965, when 32,873 baby girls — or about 1.799 percent of all girls born that year — were named Karen.

So, what happened to stain Karen and its endearing first syllable that sounds like “care,” and in the spoken language is heard as a sweet, g-droppin’ “carin’,” as in “carin’ for humankind”?

Cell phone video cameras that record (mostly white) people weaponizing their privilege — that’s what happened to stain Karen.

You may know a "Karen." Karen demands to speak to the manager for no reason other than making hapless service workers feel inferior. Karen drives her big SUV aggressively, cutting ahead of other drivers in the school pickup lane. Coronavirus Karen waved the Constitution in one hand and ripped off her mask with the other.

But of all the Karens, the most notorious call the cops on people living their lives while Black.

One of the most famous instances involving the use of Karen as a pejorative was after a Memorial Day 2020 encounter in New York’s Central Park involving a white dog walker and a Black bird watcher. The woman falsely reported to a police dispatcher the man was threatening her and her dog, and in a follow-up conversation claimed — again falsely — that he had tried to assault her.

The misdemeanor charge against the woman, who became known as “the Central Park Karen,” was dismissed earlier this year after she completed a restorative justice program.

But what’s in a name, after all?

Despite the recent slide in popularity, Karen was put on little girls’ birth certificate so often over the past century that with the recent slide, Karen was No. 10 in popularity from 1921-2020.