There are roughly 1,469,388 women named Karen in this country…give or take.
In the past few years, the name has become synonymous with entitlement, privilege and other things, thanks to social media memes. That’s the thing, I have friends named Kared and they aren’t mean or even borderline evil. Not at all.
There is an Ohio woman out there named Karen that’s done with the name Karen!
Her name is Karen Firestone and she has filed an application to legally change her first name from Karen to Kat. She’ll appear in Stark County Probate Judge Dixie Park’s court on Feb. 21 to present her case.
(Video courtesy of Icycol)
Firestone said, “Sometimes when you think about doing something that’s bold like this, and you know where to do it and how to do it … then maybe it’s fate,”
Taylor A. Humphrey, a baby name consultant and doula, who splits time between New York and California, said it often makes her sad when people change their names. She says, “Our identity is so tied to our name … but we are capable of changing.”
Jonathan Wynn, a sociology professor at University of Massachusetts Amherst, said social stigmas don’t have to come in obvious forms, such as a facial scar.
“In sociology, names are a key part of our identity,” he said.
The founder of “What’s in a Baby Name,” explained Karen has turned into a disaster name. That’s a name gone bad due to events. Much like Katrina, the name of a devastating 2005 hurricane. Or Chad, the male version of Karen.
Firestone had thought long and hard about the name change.
(Video courtesy of InformOverload)
An Ohio State University graduate, her professional career began in the 1970s as public relations director for the Ohio Department of Energy. She managed public relations for Macy’s in California.
She preparing to go back into the work force.
At its peak in 1965, Karen was the third most popular baby name in the U.S., according to information from the Social Security Administration. However, it already was losing traction when it first showed up on Reddit memes six years ago.
In 2017, only 552 babies were named Karen. Three years later, it had dipped to 329. In 2021, the name fell out of the top 1,000 for the first time in nearly a century.
