Katie
- Pronunciation
- [Ka-tie]
- Gender
- Female
- Meaning
- Variant Of Katherine. Pure.
- Origin
- English
About the Name Katie
Katie is the English short form of Katherine, Catherine, or Kaitlyn (see separate entries on Katherine, Catherine, and Kaitlyn for the Greek Aikaterine etymology, possibly from katharos meaning "pure," and the Saint Catherine of Alexandria anchor). Katie has been used as a casual diminutive of Katherine in English-speaking countries since at least the 18th century.
Notable bearers include American actress Katie Holmes (born 1978, the iconic American actress whose career through The WB's Dawson's Creek 1998–2003 and her 2005–2012 marriage to Tom Cruise made her one of the foundational late-1990s and 2000s American screen presences); American TV personality Katie Couric (born 1957, the iconic American TV journalist and longtime co-host of NBC's Today Show 1991–2006); and the contemporary American singer Katy Perry (using the related Katy spelling).
Katie held a US top-100 girls' rank from 1976 through 2010 — over three decades of consistent American popularity, peaking around 1985 at #51 in the United States. The name has receded slightly since but remains in steady use, currently sitting in the US top 300 girls' rank. The name's appeal is its compact warm classical-American register — two short syllables, soft consonants, instantly readable, and the in-built Katherine-classical pedigree alongside the strong Katie Holmes 1990s and 2000s American cultural anchor and Katie Couric American TV journalism anchor. The name reads as both classical-vintage and contemporary American. Common nicknames are scarce since Katie is itself a nickname-shape — Kate (back-end shortening, the related shorter form), Kat, Kay, and the rare Cat each occasionally appear; the longer formal Katherine, Catherine, Kaitlyn, or Katelyn are sometimes used as Katie's official-document version. International forms include Katia (Russian/Italian), Käthe (German), Catalina (Spanish), and the broader Catherine/Katherine family.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Katie
US Popularity History (1880–2025)
Annual US births named Katie by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 1986 with 8,333 girls named Katie (girl rank #38 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #646 for girls (447 US births). That's 608 places below its 1986 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 Katie 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 Katie the strongest states are Pennsylvania, Arkansas, Mississippi.
Strongest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Pennsylvania | #225 | 466 |
| 2 | Arkansas | #308 | 87 |
| 3 | Mississippi | #322 | 70 |
| 4 | Missouri | #334 | 177 |
| 5 | Kentucky | #339 | 127 |
| 6 | Utah | #355 | 127 |
| 7 | Alabama | #356 | 134 |
| 8 | Indiana | #380 | 174 |
| 9 | Iowa | #395 | 78 |
| 10 | Nevada | #398 | 38 |
Weakest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Illinois | #764 | 103 |
| 2 | Colorado | #734 | 59 |
| 3 | New Jersey | #725 | 89 |
| 4 | Florida | #702 | 222 |
| 5 | Arizona | #696 | 68 |
| 6 | Massachusetts | #684 | 56 |
| 7 | Michigan | #628 | 126 |
| 8 | Oregon | #584 | 52 |
| 9 | Washington | #581 | 116 |
| 10 | Minnesota | #575 | 76 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Katie in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Variant Forms
Famous People Named Katie
2 notable figures from history and culture who share the name Katie.
- Katie Couric — TV Show Host (1957)
- Katie Holmes — TV Actress (1978)
Looking for names like Katie?
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 Katie to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Katie against today's most popular girls-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).
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