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Girl · Hebrew, through Spanish
Carmen
Say it: KAR-men
Meaning
From Nuestra Señora del Carmen, Our Lady of Mount Carmel (Hebrew karmel 'garden, orchard'); the form was influenced by Latin carmen 'song'.
Certainscholars agree on this meaning.
One of the most common girls' names in 20th-century Spain.
Its wave through time
Most used in the 1960s
In the United States
- 155,736 babies given this name since 1881
- At its height in 1968, about 1 in 723 girls
- 720 babies in 2020
Through the ages
Used by
SpanishCatalanMexicanCentral AmericanAndeanArgentineCaribbean
The family of the name
Other spellings: Mari Carmen, Carmela, Carmelita, Mamen
| Catalan | Carme |
|---|---|
| Portuguese | Carmo |
| Basque | Karmele |
| Italian | Carmela |
Famous bearers
- Carmen, heroine of Mérimée's novella and Bizet's opera
- Carmen Laforet, Spanish novelist
- Carmen Serdán, Mexican revolutionary
Names worth a look
Where this comes from
- Calendars of saints and name days
- Well-known works of literature
- National birth statistics of European countries source
- Parish baptism registers
- National census records of the 19th and 20th centuries
- United States Social Security birth records, 1880 to today source
Meanings and histories are compiled from the study of names and their languages and checked by a second review.
Meanings and histories are drawn from the study of names and their languages, each with a confidence rating; popularity figures come from official birth records. Name histories are a living field: if you know of a correction, we would be glad to hear it.