There is a reason the name Karen was one of the Top 100 most popular names for 50 years: because it’s awesome.
However, people named Karen have had a challenging few years due to a number of (often hilarious) memes linking the name to the type of self-important middle-aged women who complain to the manager.
This stereotype may have led to a steep decline in the use of the name says Rebekah Wahlberg, BabyCenter’s name trends specialist.
"Overall, it’s a striking example of how quickly a once-common name can fade in popularity over a relatively short period of time — especially when there’s a moment in the cultural zeitgeist to accelerate it,” she tells TODAY.com.
Laura Wattenberg, an authority on naming who tracks patterns, data and cultural shifts, has a different take on the name, which she says is one of the defining names of the Baby Boom generation.
"It’s easy to assume that the memes sent a popular name over a cliff, but that wasn’t possible because the generational cliff hit decades earlier," she says. "Like most hot names of the 1950s, Karen plummeted out of use in the ‘70s and ‘80s."
Regardless of the reason for the drop, the fact remains that the name isn't exactly desirable right now.
But here's the thing ... there are plenty of Karens who are completely delightful human beings — you probably know one! And that's why TODAY.com set out to find the few, the sentimental, the brave parents who have bestowed the name Karen on their precious littles.
We'll admit that the search was long and difficult. It spanned several months and multiple social media platforms. At long last, please meet a few of our favorite Karens.
Baby Karen
Chicago mom Mary Kate Patton always wanted to have a daughter named Karen in honor of her mother, who passed away 25 years ago due to complications from Multiple Sclerosis.
"She was funny and sweet and the heart of our family, and I miss her," Patton tells TODAY.com. "I was mad that she was never going to meet my daughter."
Patton wanted to give her daughter a little piece of her mother's legacy but was crushed that the name Karen had such negative connotations. "My husband's like, 'You can't call her Karen! She's going to already have a reputation out of the womb,'" Patton says. "Why of all the names did it have to be my mom's?"
Eventually Patton and her husband found a workaround. They named their daughter Kara Grace Murphy, now 18 months.
"I love it, and everyone loves it," Patton says of the name, which is pronounced "Kare-uh." "Everyone who knows me knows my mom is Karen, and knows that Kara is named after her."
Teenage Karen
Cincinnati mom Jen Schrager welcomed her daughter, Ava Karen Schrager, in 2012. She was named in honor of Schrager's Aunt Karen who passed away from breast cancer at the age of 34. Schrager was only 8 at the time.
"I just knew at a very young age that when I had a daughter one day, that Karen would be in her name," she says.
Though the name didn't have a negative connotation when Ava was born, it had a stigma by the time she entered school, which was tough for Ava when her classmates would compare middle names.
If someone tries to tease her, though, Schrager says "she'll just remind them that she was named after someone in her family that her mom cared about."
She tells her daughter, "'You're anything but what the stereotypical Karen supposedly represents. You will change the way the world feels about Karens.'"
Adult Karen
We didn't have to look too hard to find an adult Karen because we have New York-based senior producer Karen Trosset on our TODAY.com team.
"I was named after the girl who became my favorite babysitter," Trosset says. "She baked cookies with me, watched 'Gilligan’s Island' with me, braided my hair and tucked me in. I was proud to be named after her and carried the torch as a Karen proudly."
Trosset loves her name so much that she wrote an essay about it in 2019.
Is Jessica the New Karen?
"Every generation considers its own parents the epitome of uncool," says name expert Wattenberg. "It’s no surprise that Gen Z would turn to Jessica next, since that was the number one name of the 1980s decade."
If Jessica does, in fact, eclipse Karen as the most maligned name in America, TODAY.com's Karen Trosset has some words of wisdom for the Jessicas of the world.
"In the beginning, Jessicas, you will be shocked, devastated. How is this even remotely possible? And why are people so mean? Why is it OK to say such horrible things about someone simply because of her name?" she says.
"My advice to Jessicas is to develop a backbone. No one can define you. You know who you are. Find a sense of humor about it. Love your name and lean into it," she adds.
"So good luck Jessicas ... we got you!"
