Karla
- Pronunciation
- [Kar-la]
- Gender
- Female
- Meaning
- Strong
- Origin
- French
About the Name Karla
Karla is a modern American spelling variant of Carla (see separate entry on Carla for the Italian/Latin feminine form of Charles, ultimately from the Old Germanic Karl meaning "free man"). The K-spelling Karla is essentially a 20th-21st century American/Spanish-American invention.
The various spellings (Karla, Carla) are tracked separately by SSA and represent the same underlying name. The Karla spelling specifically appeals to parents seeking a more visually distinctive form. The name has been used predominantly for girls in modern American naming and has been driven primarily by Spanish-American naming.
Notable bearers include American activist Karla Faye Tucker; contemporary Mexican-American actress Karla Souza (born 1985, the Mexican actress of ABC's How to Get Away with Murder 2014–2020); American basketball player Karla Galindo; and the contemporary fictional Karla of various contemporary novels. Karla's American climb has been substantial: the name climbed into the US top 300 girls' rank by 1990 and the top 300 since. The name's appeal is its layered Old Germanic-Italian-Latin-Spanish-American pedigree combined with two firm syllables — the in-built Charles-classical Germanic pedigree, the elegant Latinate sophistication, and tonal warmth distinctive to Spanish-American naming. Two firm syllables, soft consonants, and the name reads as both classical-Latinate and contemporary American. Common nicknames Kar (the dominant short form, casual and warm), Karli, and the rare Kiki each carry distinct registers; the alternate spellings Karla, Carla (the historical Italian spelling), and Carlla have their own SSA tracking. International forms include Carla (Italian/Spanish/Portuguese), Karla (essentially identical across Slavic/German/Spanish), Charlotte (English feminine), Caroline (French), and the broader Charles/Karl family.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Karla
US Popularity History (2000–2025)
Annual US births named Karla by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2002 with 1,840 girls named Karla (girl rank #175 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #803 for girls (340 US births). That's 628 places below its 2002 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 Karla 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 Karla the strongest states are Nevada, Texas, California.
Strongest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nevada | #360 | 36 |
| 2 | Texas | #416 | 743 |
| 3 | California | #426 | 823 |
| 4 | Maryland | #517 | 89 |
| 5 | Arkansas | #525 | 18 |
| 6 | Arizona | #551 | 119 |
| 7 | Florida | #572 | 284 |
| 8 | Utah | #573 | 29 |
| 9 | New Jersey | #616 | 110 |
| 10 | New York | #631 | 252 |
Weakest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Pennsylvania | #903 | 41 |
| 2 | Indiana | #846 | 37 |
| 3 | North Carolina | #837 | 104 |
| 4 | Massachusetts | #831 | 29 |
| 5 | Wisconsin | #789 | 18 |
| 6 | Illinois | #739 | 138 |
| 7 | Georgia | #739 | 131 |
| 8 | Washington | #738 | 46 |
| 9 | Colorado | #731 | 60 |
| 10 | Alabama | #728 | 19 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Karla in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Variant Forms
| Name | Meaning | Gender | Origin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Karlee | Womanly: Strength. Feminine Of Karl. | Female | German |
| Karleigh | Womanly: Strength. Feminine Of Karl. | Female | German |
| Karlene | Womanly: Strength. Feminine Of Karl. | Female | German |
| Karlesha | Womanly: Strength. Feminine Of Karl. | Female | German |
| Karley | Womanly: Strength. Feminine Of Karl. | Female | German |
| Karli | Covered With Snow | Female | Turkish |
| Karlie | Womanly: Strength. Feminine Of Karl. | Female | German |
| Karly | Womanly: Strength. Feminine Of Karl. | Female | German |
| Karlyn | Womanly: Strength. Feminine Of Karl. | Female | German |
Looking for names like Karla?
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 Karla to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Karla against today's most popular girls-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).