Karen

Where the name comes from

• Danish
  Short form of Katherine; Katherine itself is of uncertain origin
  Katherine (Greek Aikaterina / Aikaterine)
  etymonline: "Danish shortened form of Katherine". DMNES records Danish Karine in 1581 under Katherine and says Katherine is "of uncertain origin" and "unrelated to Greek καθαρός ‘pure’". The popular gloss "pure" is a later folk association.

Karen across traditions

• Danish / Scandinavian. Vernacular Scandinavian forms of Katherine are recorded from the 14th century (Old Swedish Katrine, 1370) and Danish Karine from 1581 (DMNES). Best-known Danish bearer: Karen Blixen (Isak Dinesen).
• United States (SSA). 793,796 combined births, 1950s–2010s. Peak decade 1950s, #8 (332,531); best rank #4 in the 1960s. Then #25, #84, #130, #170 (2000s); out of the top 200 in the 2010s. etymonline: "Rare before 1928; a top-10 name for girls born in the U.S. 1951-1968." Since about 2018 "Karen" has also been pejorative slang (etymonline: attested by 2005).
• Homonym: Karen people (Myanmar). Unrelated ethnonym: "heterogeneous people of eastern Burma, 1759 (as Carian), from Burmese ka-reng" (etymonline, citing OED). Not a form of the given name.
• Homonym: Armenian masculine Karen. Separate masculine name. Encyclopaedia Iranica lists "Armen. karen" among cognates of Kārin, "one of the seven great families of the Parthian and Sasanian periods". Bearer: Karen Demirchian, Armenian Communist Party first secretary 1972–1988, killed in the parliament shooting of October 27, 1999.

Who carried it

• Karen Blixen (Karen Christence Dinesen; pen name Isak Dinesen) (1885–1962): Danish writer of Seven Gothic Tales (1934) and Out of Africa (1937).
• Karen Demirchian (Armenian homonym) (died October 27, 1999, aged 67): First secretary of the Armenian Communist Party 1972–1988; speaker of parliament in 1999.

Forms in other languages

Karin, Karine, Caren, Karyn, Katrine, Katherine

Karen in letter-number systems

Hebrew, Greek and other traditions gave every letter a number, and read meaning into the totals. These are the counts, computed; the readings are inside the Innerverse.