Carmen is a Spanish name taken from the title Nuestra Señora del Carmen, Our Lady of Mount Carmel, so it goes back to the Hebrew karmel, "garden" or "orchard"; the spelling was shaped by the Latin carmen, "song". Bizet's opera Carmen (1875) made it famous far beyond Spain. In the United States Carmen has stayed between number 239 (2004) and the mid 400s all century and ranks number 389 in 2025.