Caroline

Caroline came into European use through Latin. The name is the feminine of Carolus, the Latin form of Charles, and it carries the sense of "free woman." From the same root Polish keeps two familiar forms: Karolina, the variant most people here recognize, and Karol, the masculine name a father or brother might share.

The name moved with courts. Caroline of Ansbach, queen consort of George II of Great Britain, is one documented bearer who fixed it in English memory, while French usage carried Caroline through the same royal circles. That double home, English and French, is why the spelling with a final e still looks foreign on a Polish page and yet reads without trouble.

Open a school register in Poland and you are far likelier to find Karolina. The Latin bones are the same. A girl named Karolina and a boy named Karol both trace back to Carolus, and both answer, in the old sense, to "free."

Caroline is the borrowed cousin. Karolina is the one who stayed.