Carole
- Pronunciation
- [Ca-role]
- Gender
- Female
- Meaning
- Song Of Happiness: Joy. Feminine Of Carl.
- Origin
- French
About the Name Carole
Carole is the French feminine form of Carol, which in turn derives from the Old French and Latin tradition around Carolus — the Latinised form of the Germanic Karl or Charles, meaning "free man" or "strong man." The French spelling with a final -e gives the name a Gallic elegance that distinguished it from the plainer English Carol, and the meaning "song of happiness" or "joy" reflects the name's additional association with the word carol itself — a song of joy, especially at Christmas — layering musical warmth over its Germanic root.
Carole first entered the US Social Security top-1000 in 1934 and peaked in 1942 at rank #35. Its total top-1000 births across the tracked run reach over 62,000. The name's run was comparatively brief: it left the top-1000 after 1946, when it appeared at rank #72 with over 4,600 births. That narrow twelve-year window — peaking during World War II — places Carole firmly in a very specific generational cohort, and the fact that 1944 and 1945 show the highest birth counts in the recent data (over 6,000 and 4,800 respectively) points to a name that was genuinely fashionable in those wartime years before quickly giving way to its sibling Carol.
Today Carole is a rare choice, carrying the particular charm of early-1940s American femininity. Its French spelling adds a degree of sophistication that Carol lacks, and its compact two-syllable structure is as clean today as it was eight decades ago. Recorded variants include Carel, Carrol, Carroll, Caryl, Karel, and Karol.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Carole
US Popularity History (1934–1946)
Annual US births named Carole by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 1942 with 8,407 girls named Carole (girl rank #35 that year).
Where it stands today: in 1946, ranked #72 for girls (4,621 US births). That's 37 places below its 1942 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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Variant Forms
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Compare Carole to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Carole against today's most popular girls-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).