Katharine
given name · Latin script
Meaning: Variant of Katherine, associated by folk etymology with Greek katharos ‘pure’
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/kat̪əɹɪn/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Katharine is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Russia than in any other country, where it is the 16th most common given name.
- BYBelarus≈1 in 41as Екатерина(inferred from the name graph)
- CZCzechia1 in 45as Kateřina
- RURussia≈1 in 54as Екатерина
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than Katharine itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- Russia (inferred from the name graph)
- #18 (measured from records)
- 9 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 624 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 41 (inferred from the name graph)
≈2,600,000 named Екатерина, est.
of 15M given names
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Belarus, est., as Екатерина
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
7 other spellings are counted as the same name:
Locally spelled Екатерина in RU Russia, BY Belarus, CN China, Ekaterina in CZ Czechia, MD Moldova, Catherine in US United States and Катерина in UA Ukraine.
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
Variant of Katherine, associated by folk etymology with Greek katharos ‘pure’. 137 This is the preferred spelling in Germany and North America: it is the one used, for example, in the name of the film star Katharine Hepburn (b. 1909).
Sources 1
- A concise dictionary of first names
Attested across 19 languages in the etymology graph.
Often considered alongside
Names that people choosing a name often weigh against Katharine, most often first. They share a style rather than an origin.
From the names suggested together in public name-advice forums, in English. A list of what people consider, not a measure of how common any name is.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Katharine counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| RU Russia | #16 | ≈2,600,000 est. | ≈1 in 54 | #13 | Екатерина | 287 |
| CN China | — | ≈2,100,000 est. | ≈1 in 668 | — | Екатерина | 76 |
| UA Ukraine | #25 | ≈550,000 est. | ≈1 in 79 | listed | Катерина | 160 |
| US United States | #29 | 470,588as Katherine | 1 in 707 | 470K | Catherine | 624 |
| FR France | — | ≈260,000 est. | ≈1 in 264 | 395K | Ekaterine | 80 |
| CZ Czechia | #503 | 236,254as Kateřina | 1 in 45 | 236K | Ekaterina | 62 |
| BY Belarus | #14 | ≈230,000 est. | ≈1 in 41 | 16 | Екатерина | 70 |
| MD Moldova | #444 | 43,869as Ecaterina | 1 in 77 | 44K | Ekaterina | 31 |
Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; INSEE — Fichier des prénoms (1900–2024); MVČR — living population register 2017; Universal Dependencies Belarusian-HSE Corpus — Person Names (UD_Belarusian-HSE); e-services.md — living population register. Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Other recorded senses(measured from records)
Katharine is also recorded in 3 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In English, A female given name from Ancient Greek.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In English, Czech; pure; see Catherine
as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
Variant of KATHERINE , the preferred form in America. The spelling has been affected by folk-etymological association with Greek katharos pure.
as a word
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Marie of Saxe-Altenburgb. 1818DEnot in their usual nameQueen consort of Hanover (1818–1907)
- Anna Katharine Greenb. 1846USAmerican novelist (1846–1935)
- Dorothea Douglassb. 1878GBnot in their usual nameEnglish tennis and badminton player (1878–1960)
- Katharine Hepburnb. 1907USAmerican actress (1907–2003)
- Katharine Grahamb. 1917USAmerican publisher, editor and author
- Katharine Worsleyb. 1933GBmember of the British royal family (1933–2025)
- Katharine Rossb. 1940USAmerican actress
- Katharine Houghtonb. 1945USAmerican actress, playwright
- Katharine Isabelleb. 1981CACanadian actress
- Katharine McPheeb. 1984USAmerican recording artist, singer and songwriter
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
How to address them(machine-generated)
A formal English salutation is built on the surname, so it needs a full name — on its own, a first name only supports the informal form.
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 47 sources across 26 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 29K | #1,269 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 30 | #1,269 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 27 | — |
| CZ Czechia | MVČR — living population register 2017 | — | 10 | #5,958 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1985 | 5 | — |
| CZ Czechia | KdeJsme.cz — četnost jmen a příjmení (MVČR population register front-end) | — | 5 | #3,266 |
Reference works 3
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What are other forms of the name Katharine?
- In the etymology graph, Kathleen, Catherine and Katherine are forms of the same name in other languages.
- What does the name Katharine mean, and where does it come from?
- Variant of Katherine, associated by folk etymology with Greek katharos ‘pure’. Recorded by A concise dictionary of first names.
- How do you pronounce Katharine?
- A machine transcription gives /kat̪əɹɪn/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Katharine have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 2.6 million people named Екатерина in Russia, more than in any other country we hold.
- Is Katharine a male or female name?
- Katharine is a female name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
- How common is the name Katharine?
- In the United States, the national register counted 470,588 people named Katherine in 2020, about 1 in 707 residents.
- How common is Katharine compared with other names?
- In Russia, Katharine is the 16th most common given name of 472,143 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Katharine?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/katharineThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Katharine” — the 16th most common given name in Russia. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.