Karina
- Pronunciation
- [Ka-ri-na]
- Gender
- Female
- Meaning
- Form Of Karen; Pure KIRA, KIROCHKA
- Origin
- Russian
About the Name Karina
Karina is the Russian, Polish, and Latin American spelling variant of Carina (see separate entries on Carina and Karen for the related etymological lines — possibly from the Latin cara meaning "dear" or "beloved," or from the Italian-Spanish elaborated form of the Scandinavian Karen, ultimately from the Greek katharos meaning "pure"). The K-spelling Karina is the standard form across Slavic naming traditions.
Notable bearers include the iconic Spanish-American actress Karina Smirnoff (born 1978, the Russian-American dancer of ABC's Dancing with the Stars); contemporary Mexican-American actress Karina Banda; American basketball player Karina Cuomo; and the contemporary fictional Karina of various contemporary novels.
Karina has been continuously used in Russian-American, Polish-American, and Spanish-American communities for decades. The name's American climb has been substantial: the name climbed into the US top 200 girls' rank by 1995 and the top 300 since. The name has been driven primarily by Russian-American, Polish-American, and Spanish-American naming. The name's appeal is its multi-cultural etymological flexibility (Latin/Greek/Italian-Spanish/Russian/Polish), the popular three-syllable -ina ending family (Karina, Marina, Adriana), and the modern visual presence with the K-spelling. Three flowing syllables, soft consonants, and tonal warmth distinctive to multi-cultural names. The name reads as both classical-multi-cultural and contemporary American. Common nicknames Kara (back-end shortening, a popular standalone name on its own), Kari (gender-neutral), Rina (back-end shortening), and the rare Kiki each carry distinct registers; the alternate spellings Karina, Carina (the historical Latin spelling), and Korina have their own SSA tracking. International forms include Carina (Italian/Latin original), Karin (Scandinavian/German), Catherine (the broader Greek family), Karyna (Ukrainian), and the original Greek katharos.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Karina
US Popularity History (2000–2025)
Annual US births named Karina by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2000 with 2,133 girls named Karina (girl rank #159 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #750 for girls (363 US births). That's 591 places below its 2000 peak.
Source: US Social Security Administration. Limitations: US birth-certificate data only; names appearing fewer than 5 times in a given year are suppressed for privacy; spelling variants are counted separately. For names that ranked outside the US top 100 before year 2000, only the years they reached the top 100 are shown — the chart may have gaps for less-popular historical names.
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Where in the US Is Karina Most Popular?
Average girl-name rank within each state across 2016–2025 SSA records. A lower number means the name appears closer to the top of that state's girls-name rankings — a per-capita measure that isn't biased toward large states. For Karina the strongest states are New Mexico, Connecticut, California.
Strongest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | New Mexico | #276 | 20 |
| 2 | Connecticut | #402 | 23 |
| 3 | California | #403 | 853 |
| 4 | Kansas | #458 | 23 |
| 5 | Washington | #481 | 143 |
| 6 | Massachusetts | #509 | 86 |
| 7 | Texas | #540 | 569 |
| 8 | Oregon | #554 | 42 |
| 9 | Florida | #559 | 295 |
| 10 | Oklahoma | #576 | 30 |
Weakest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tennessee | #870 | 31 |
| 2 | Indiana | #817 | 40 |
| 3 | Missouri | #797 | 29 |
| 4 | Ohio | #762 | 96 |
| 5 | Alabama | #749 | 39 |
| 6 | Colorado | #737 | 52 |
| 7 | North Carolina | #733 | 107 |
| 8 | Pennsylvania | #733 | 124 |
| 9 | Georgia | #727 | 86 |
| 10 | Michigan | #715 | 88 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Karina in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Variant Forms
Looking for names like Karina?
A dedicated page with 60+ related names — spelling variants, rhymes, alliterations, same-origin matches, and shared meaning concepts — lives at its own URL so each kind of similarity gets a deeper treatment than fits here.
Compare Karina to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Karina against today's most popular girls-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).