Charlene
Charlene is a girl's name that peaked in 1952, when it was the 106th most popular in the United States. In 2025 it ranked 1,942nd. About 96,000 Charlenes are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 65.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Charlene boys named Charlene
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 134,111
- Estimated living today
- 96,000
- Median age today
- 65
- Peak year
- 1952
- Best rank
- 106th
- Rank in 2025
- 1,942nd
- First recorded
- 1888
- Girls / boys
- 133,729 / 382
How old the living Charlenes are
born that year still alive today
Of the 134,111 babies given the name since 1888, about 96,000 are alive — 71 in every hundred. Roughly 2,300 of them are children and 48,000 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1960 and half after.
An estimate, not a count. SSA births aged forward through SSA cohort life tables, which know nothing about who left the country or arrived in it — so for a name that mostly came to America rather than being born in it, this is a floor rather than a figure. Where you fall among living Americans.
Where the name comes from
Origin Germanic languages
A feminine form of Charles coined in the nineteenth century. Compare Marlene, Helene and Magdalene for the suffix.
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Charlenes
- Charlene, Princess of Monaco (born 1978)Zimbabwean-South African former Olympic swimmer; wife of Albert II, Prince of Monaco
- Charlene Choi (born 1982)Hong Kong actress and singer
- Charlene Tilton (born 1958)American actress
- Charlène Guignard (born 1989)French-Italian ice dancer
- Charlene Holt (1928–1996)American actress
- Charlene de Carvalho-Heineken (born 1954)British+Dutch businesswoman, heiress (Heineken International) and billionaire
- Charlene (born 1950)American singer
- Charlene McKenna (born 1984)Irish actress
People named Charlene with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Charlene is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Charlene is most concentrated in Hawaii (3.0×), the District of Columbia (1.8×), Maine (1.8×), Alaska (1.5×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 1952
The most popular girls’ names the year Charlene peaked:
Charlene elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| France girls | Charlène +1 spelling | 32,780 | 42nd |
| Scotland girls | Charlene | 2,357 | 25th |
| Ireland girls | Charlene | 1,100 | 52nd |
| England and Wales girls | Charlene | 735 | 410th |
| Belgium girls | Charlène +1 spelling | 193 | 458th |
| Switzerland girls | Charlène | 154 | 429th |
| Northern Ireland girls | Charlene | 42 | 188th |
Counts come from each country's own records and are not comparable with the US figures above, which cover different years and a different definition of a recorded name. Where a country writes the name several ways, the spellings are added together and the most common is shown. A row marked name registrations is counting something else: Portugal ranks each of a child's two given names separately, so a girl registered Maria Leonor is in both the Maria row and the Leonor row, and that figure is not a number of children.
Charlene: births by region
| Region | Country | Spelling | Births | Share of the region | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| German girls | Switzerland | Charlène | 53 | 0.004% | 544th |
| French girls | Switzerland | Charlène | 100 | 0.023% | 177th |
| Italian girls | Switzerland | Charlène | 1 | 0.002% | 194th |
Parts of a country counted above, not extra births. The share is what makes the regions comparable: they differ in size by a factor of three hundred.
By canton, Charlene is most concentrated in Vaud, where 0.02% of children were given it – 40 of them.
Charlene: rank by region
In 2016, Charlene was given 5 times or more in 1 region of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flanders | Charlene | 826 | 5 |
In 2016, Charlene was among the 10 most common names in 1 region of Italy.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Valle d'Aosta/Vallée d'Aoste | Charlene | 10 | 1 |
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children, Italy after 10 names – and published nothing after. So a region missing here is one where the name fell outside what was published, not one where it went unused. Places are shared where names tie, and the further down a list a place is, the more names can share it.
Charlene by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin girls | 2017–2023 | 2 | 551st |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Charlene among the living
How many people each country's register counts under the name, rather than how many were given it in any one year. Each register was read on one date, and they are not the same date.
| Country | Spelling | First forename | Any forename |
|---|---|---|---|
| Finland girls | Charlene | 16 | 34 |
A count of people on a register – Finland on 4 August 2026 – and not of births, so it cannot be compared with the figures above. Names with very few bearers are withheld, and a dash in the first-forename column means the register would not say rather than that nobody goes by it.
Related names
Charlene against another name
Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.
Try it on yourself
Source: US Social Security Administration, national and state baby-name files, 1880–2025. Counts include only births registered with the SSA, and names with fewer than five births in a year are not published. The living estimate applies SSA cohort life tables to those births; it counts people born in the United States, so it misses anyone who arrived later and anyone who has left.