Karol
From Latin, meaning "free man". Around 165,000 Polish men carry it and it still sits inside the top 100, though it goes to fewer boys each year than it once did.
Karol Pronunciation
Karol is pronounced KAH-rol (/ˈkarɔl/).
What Karol means
Where Karol comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Karol comes into Polish from the Latin Carolus, and the meaning is plain: a free man. Behind the word stands a person who answers to no master and holds his own ground. Here the meaning is also the origin, since a free man is what the name has said from the start.
For a long time the name belonged to rulers. Karol Wielki, the emperor the rest of Europe knows as Charlemagne, fixed the form, and its cousins spread across the continent as Charles, Carlos, and Karl.
The feminine variant Karolina hands the same idea, a free person, to a daughter. The sense is freedom. Read out from a school class register or entered on a form at the urząd, Karol still means what Carolus meant: a free man.
How many people are named Karol
1 in 129 men in Poland is named Karol. 165,893 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #87 among male names.
Karol's popularity over time
721 boys were given the name in 2025, ranking #84 among newborns. It has been falling steadily since 2000.
Where Karol is most popular
Karol is most popular in Opole, 91% above the national average (349 boys born 2019–2025), followed by Lesser Poland (+75%) and Subcarpathian (+72%). It is least common in Greater Poland and Kuyavian-Pomeranian, 56% and 44% below average respectively.
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Opole349 boys born+91%
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Lesser Poland1,571 boys born+75%
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Subcarpathian818 boys born+72%
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Silesian1,361 boys born+51%
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Lower Silesian689 boys born+11%
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Lublin428 boys born+5%
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Lubusz199 boys born+1%
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West Pomeranian273 boys born−18%
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Świętokrzyskie177 boys born−19%
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Masovian1,070 boys born−24%
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Pomeranian371 boys born−36%
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Podlaskie160 boys born−38%
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Łódź300 boys born−40%
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Warmian-Masurian161 boys born−43%
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Kuyavian-Pomeranian241 boys born−44%
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Greater Poland378 boys born−56%
Karol as a middle name
Karol is a first name for 165,893 men in Poland and a middle name for another 105,522, a 61/39 split. In the men's middle-name ranking it sits 31st, between Janusz (107,970) and Władysław (100,059).
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29
109,293Maciej
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30
107,970Janusz
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31105,522Karol
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32
100,059Władysław
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33
98,841Mariusz
When Karol celebrates name day
Karol appears 3 times in the Polish name day calendar. The main date is 28 January.