Catherine
- Pronunciation
- [Ca-the-rine]
- Gender
- Female
- Meaning
- Innocent
- Origin
- Anglo
About the Name Catherine
Catherine is the standard English spelling of the Greek-derived name (see separate entry on Katherine for the broader Greek Aikaterinē etymology and Saint Catherine of Alexandria anchor). Catherine has been used continuously in English-speaking countries since the medieval period and shares all etymological context with Katherine — the two spellings are tracked separately by SSA but represent the same underlying name.
The Catherine spelling has been favored by multiple English/British queens consort and royal figures: Catherine of Aragon (first wife of Henry VIII), Catherine Parr (Henry VIII's sixth and surviving wife), Catherine, Princess of Wales (born 1982, wife of Prince William, Princess of Wales since 2022). The Catherine spelling reads as slightly more traditionally British than the alternative Katherine.
Catherine has been continuously among the top-50 American girls' names for over a century, holding a top-100 range in nearly every decade since 1880. Notable bearers include 18th-century Russian Empress Catherine the Great (born Sophie Friederike Auguste, see entry on Sophie), American novelist Catherine Anne Porter (Pulitzer Prize for Ship of Fools), and contemporary actress Catherine Zeta-Jones. The name's appeal is its dignified Greek-Christian classicism combined with three syllables and the unusually wide range of nicknames. Common nicknames span an unusually wide range: Cathy, Cat, Kate, Katie, Kitty, Trina (back-end shortening), and the rare Caitlin family. International forms include Caterina (Italian), Catalina (Spanish), Katarina (Slavic/Scandinavian), Kathleen (Irish), and Catriona (Scottish Gaelic).
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Catherine
US Popularity History (1880–2025)
Annual US births named Catherine by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 1956 with 12,057 girls named Catherine (girl rank #28 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #314 for girls (972 US births). That's 286 places below its 1956 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 Catherine 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 Catherine the strongest states are District of Columbia, Delaware, Alabama.
Strongest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | District of Columbia | #97 | 95 |
| 2 | Delaware | #147 | 19 |
| 3 | Alabama | #162 | 262 |
| 4 | Rhode Island | #168 | 24 |
| 5 | New Hampshire | #182 | 34 |
| 6 | Virginia | #184 | 428 |
| 7 | Massachusetts | #195 | 302 |
| 8 | Louisiana | #198 | 239 |
| 9 | North Carolina | #200 | 490 |
| 10 | South Carolina | #202 | 214 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Catherine in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Variant Forms
| Name | Meaning | Gender | Origin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cari | Flows Like Water | Female | Turkish |
| Cassie | Purity | Female | Greek |
| Cassy | Abbreviation Of Cassandra. Unheeded Prophetess. In Homer's The Iliad Cassandra's Prediction Of The Fall Of Troy Was Unheeded. | Female | English |
| Cat | Catlike | Male | Scottish |
| Catalina | Pure IZABEL | Female | English |
| Catarina | Pure | Female | Italian |
| Cathy | Form Of The Greek Catherine Meaning Pure. | Female | English |
| Karen | Pure | Female | Danish |
| Kari | Joyful Song | Female | French |
| Kasia | Alert. Vigorous. Modern Variant Of Casey. | Male | English |
| Kat | English Abbreviation Of Katherine. Pure. | Female | English |
| Katarina | Female | English | |
| Kate | English Abbreviation Of Katherine. Pure. | Female | English |
| Katherine | Pure. Used Since Third Century A.D. Early Latin Forms Katerina And Caterina Became Katharine And Catherine. French Cateline And English Catlyn Came Into Wider Use During Medieval Period When Variants Multiplied. | Female | English |
| Kathleen | Innocent | Female | Irish |
| Katia | Variant Of Katherine. Pure. | Female | Spanish |
| Katie | Variant Of Katherine. Pure. | Female | English |
| Katina | Pure. | Female | English |
| Katinka | Pure | Female | Hungarian |
| Katrina | Variant Of Katherine. Pure. | Female | English |
| Kit | Nickname For Christopher. Frontiersman Kit Carson. | Male | English |
| Kitty | Variant Of Katherine. Pure. | Female | English |
| Trina | Innocent | Female | Greek |
Famous People Named Catherine
1 notable figure from history and culture who share the name Catherine.
- Catherine the Great — Royalty (1729)
Looking for names like Catherine?
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 Catherine to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Catherine 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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