Carina comes from the Latin cara and means "dear" or "beloved"; it is also the name of a southern constellation, the keel of the ship Argo, and in Italian carina is simply the word for "cute". The name is used across Europe and Latin America and in the US is strongest in Hispanic families. Carina stood at number 567 in 2000, slipped out of the top 1000 in the 2010s and ranks number 1572 in 2025.