The first name Carter has several origins: Irish, Scottish and English and was an occupational name for someone who transports goods with a cart or wagon, ultimately of Celtic origin.
Carter is a male first name. In very rare cases it is also used for girls.
The first name Carter is one of the top 100 most popular boys names in the US – currently at #29 in our SmartGenius ranking. Over 1,000 babies each year are named Carter, accounting for approximately 0.50 % of all newborn boys. In the entire USA, approximately 189,658 people – children, adults and seniors – currently bear the name Carter. That is 0.06 % of all living Americans.
The first name Carter has several origins: Irish, Scottish and English and was an occupational name for someone who transports goods with a cart or wagon, ultimately of Celtic origin.
Nick Carter (*1980)
Nick Carter started his career at Mickey Mouse Club before becoming one of the five Backstreet Boys in 1993. Due to the enormous success of the band, he became one of the most famous and popular boy band members of the 90s and 2000s. His younger brother Aaron also became a successful child star and was known around the world until his unexpected death in 2022.
Carter Bays (*1975)
The American screenwriter and television producer Carter Bays created the sitcom 'How I Met Your Mother' together with Craig Thomas. The hilarious characters of the series represent themselves. In addition, he wrote for television broadcasts such as 'The Late Show with David Letterman' and works as a songwriter for the media industry.
Jimmy Carter (*1924)
James Earl Carter Jr., better known as Jimmy Carter, was the 39th president of the United States. He was in office from January 1977 until January 1981. The Democrat holds several records regarding his age: He is the longest-lived president as well as the one with the longest post-presidency. In addition his marriage in 1946 makes him the the longest-married president.
When you hear the name Carter, you might first think of people. But did you know that there are also places with the name Carter? Are you also called Carter? Maybe one day you will visit the places that are named just like you...
along Missouri River which is close to Carter. That is a small place in Montana, with an estimated population of 65 people. You can even take a rest at the local Carter Bar.
in Cartersville in Georgia on your roadtrip along Highway 41 and 411. The 20,000-inhabitant city is the birthplace of actor Wayne Knight and songwriter Butch Walker.
Carter Drive, a street in a 120,000-inhabitant-suburb in the east of London.
#20 - this is the highest rank Carter has ever achieved. Not many names manage to reach such a high popularity in even one of the 140+ years of recording. The last time Carter reached this top spot was in 2018 when 10,014 newborn boys were given this name. But as our statistics show, Carter hasn't always been a popular name: in some years of record, most recently in the year 1882, not a single newborn or less than 5 were named Carter (a name is only included in the official statistics if it has been given at least 5 times in a year). Nevertheless, the name Carter has accompanied people in this country for a long time. It turns out that this name fits very well into our time today. From zero to hero - even though it took a while for Carter to really catch on, it has become a very popular name.
In years where the graph has no value, the name Carter was given less than five times or even none at all in the entire USA.
In 2022, 6,875 newborns were given the name Carter, making it rank #42. In the current century, the name is really taking off. So the chances of meeting a young Carter are higher than ever.
There are only 386 different male names registered in every single state in the U.S., and Carter is one of them. However, Carter is not equally widespread in all states, but people in Utah seem to particularly fancy this name – the 3,606 men called Carter who live here are 0,265% of all male residents and push their name up to #90 in our SmartGenius statistics, easily placing it in the top 100 most common male names in Utah. If you look at all the states in the USA together, you can currently find as many as 189,658 people with the name Carter. Across all regions and age groups, this lands Carter on position 183 in our SmartGenius ranking of the top male names – of course, the current popularity as a baby name for newborns looks somewhat different, as you can see from the statistics above.
Well, you might say, you probably figured that out yourself! But what you might not know is: The letter C is a frequent initial letter for boys’ names. This is because 5.2% of all common boys’ names in the US begin with this letter. The most common first letters of boys' names, by the way, are J, A and D.
With six letters, the name Carter is of average length. In fact, 28% of all common first names in the US consist of exactly six letters. 24% of all first names are shorter, while 48% have seven letters or more. On average, first names in the US (not counting hyphenated names) are 6.5 letters long. There are no significant differences between boys' and girls' names.
With 5.2% of all boys' names that begin with a C, this first letter is thus much more common than the average of all letters. And which boys’ name beginning with C do you think is the most common in the US? The answer is... Charles.
If your name is Carter and someone asks after your name, you can of course just tell them what it is. But sometimes that isn't so easy - what if it's too loud, and you don't understand them well? Or what if the other person is so far away that you can see them but not hear them? In these situations, you can communicate your name in so many other ways: you call spell it, sign it, or even use a flag to wave it...
So that everyone really understands you when you have to spell the name Carter, you can simply say:
Cat
Apple
Rocket
Tiger
Elephant
Rocket
Braille is made up of dots, which the blind and visually impaired can feel to read words.
Carter
Carter
Just use American Sign Language!
These flags are used for maritime communication - each flag represents a letter.
C
A
R
T
E
R
In the navy, sailors of two ships might wave flags to each other to send messages. A sailor holds two flags in specific positions to represent different letters.
C
A
R
T
E
R
In Morse code, letters and other characters are represented only by a series of short and long tones. For example, a short tone followed by a long tone stands for the letter A. Carter sounds like this:
