Charlotte
- Pronunciation
- [Char-lotte]
- Gender
- Female
- Meaning
- Tiny And Feminine. Also Feminine Of Charles Meaning Manly
- Origin
- French
About the Name Charlotte
Charlotte is the French feminine form of Charles, which descends from the Old Germanic Karl meaning "free man" — the same root that gave the medieval Latin Carolus and English Charles. Charlotte's specifically French form arrived in England in the 17th century with Queen Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (1744–1818), wife of King George III and mother of fifteen children, who made the name fashionable among the British aristocracy.
The name's literary anchor is Charlotte Brontë (1816–1855), eldest of the three Brontë sisters and author of Jane Eyre. American novelist Charlotte Perkins Gilman ("The Yellow Wallpaper," 1892) added a feminist political dimension a generation later. The name's modern surge accelerated after the May 2015 birth of Princess Charlotte of Wales (daughter of Prince William and Catherine), which lifted the name from US #46 in 2010 to #4 by 2024 — one of the largest royal-influenced naming shifts on record.
Charlotte's tonal range is unusual: it can read as classical and dignified (Queen Charlotte), literary and serious (Brontë), or contemporary and approachable depending on register. Common nicknames stretch across that whole range — Charlie and Charley (gender-neutral, modern), Lottie and Lola (vintage and trendy respectively), Carlie and Carlita. Direct variants include Charlotta (Swedish), Carlotta (Italian), Carlota (Spanish/Portuguese), and the masculine Charles (Charlie) family across most European languages.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Charlotte
US Popularity History (1880–2025)
Annual US births named Charlotte by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2025 with 13,400 girls named Charlotte (girl rank #2 that year).
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 Charlotte 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 Charlotte the strongest states are New Hampshire, Maine, Minnesota.
Strongest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | New Hampshire | #1 | 769 |
| 2 | Maine | #1 | 692 |
| 3 | Minnesota | #2 | 2,462 |
| 4 | Michigan | #2 | 4,018 |
| 5 | Virginia | #2 | 3,967 |
| 6 | Colorado | #2 | 2,452 |
| 7 | Massachusetts | #2 | 3,221 |
| 8 | Rhode Island | #2 | 500 |
| 9 | Wisconsin | #2 | 2,434 |
| 10 | Iowa | #2 | 1,444 |
Weakest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | New Mexico | #17 | 375 |
| 2 | Hawaii | #13 | 258 |
| 3 | West Virginia | #13 | 510 |
| 4 | California | #13 | 10,782 |
| 5 | Mississippi | #12 | 680 |
| 6 | Texas | #11 | 9,113 |
| 7 | Arizona | #9 | 2,209 |
| 8 | Nevada | #9 | 879 |
| 9 | Florida | #8 | 6,144 |
| 10 | North Dakota | #8 | 331 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Charlotte in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Variant Forms
| Name | Meaning | Gender | Origin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Carla | Manly | Female | Romanian |
| Carleen | Feminine Form Of Charles Manly | Female | Irish |
| Carly | Little And Womanly. Alternate Spelling: Carlie. | Female | Latin |
| Charleen | Manly | Female | French |
| Charlene | Manly | Female | French |
| Charlie | A Man: Variant Of Carl. | Male | English |
| Charmaine | Variant Of Charles Manly. One Of Cleopatra's Attendants In Shakespeare's Antony And Cleopatra Was Named Charmian. | Female | French |
| Charo | Nickname For Rosario. Variant Of Rosa. | Female | Spanish |
| Cheryl | Feminine Form Of Charles | Female | German |
| Lola | Feminine Form Of Carlos Manly: Abbreviation Of Dolores Full Of Sorrows. | Female | Spanish |
| Lolita | Feminine Form Of Carlos Manly | Female | Spanish |
| Sherry | From The White Meadow | Female | English |
Famous People Named Charlotte
3 notable figures from history and culture who share the name Charlotte.
- Charlotte Bronte — Novelist (1816)
- Charlotte Church — Opera Singer (1986)
- Charlotte Perkins Gilman was a famous American feminist, sociologist and novelist.
Looking for names like Charlotte?
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 Charlotte to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Charlotte 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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