Karen is the Danish short form of Katherine, which goes back to the Greek Aikaterine and is usually explained as "pure". Scandinavian immigrants brought it to the United States, where it became one of the defining names of the baby boom and sat in the top 10 from 1951 to 1968. The long slide since then sped up once the name turned into internet slang: Karen stood at number 153 in 2000, dropped out of the top 1000 in 2021 and ranks number 1281 in 2025.