Babies named Karen in the USChinese billionaires (Forbes)
The name Karen began a long, dignified retreat from American birth certificates at approximately the same rate that Chinese entrepreneurs began a long, dignified march up the Forbes list (r = -0.958), a correlation that feels vaguely unflattering to at least one party but is arithmetic rather than commentary. The decade preferred the billionaire to the Karen. The decade was, in this respect, specific.
Babies named Karen in the US fell from around 400 in 2010 to about 200 in 2022, with an especially sharp drop after 2018 when the name became cultural shorthand for a particular kind of entitled complainant; Forbes-counted Chinese billionaires grew from 64 to over 470 in the same window (peaking higher before regulatory pressure trimmed the list). The two are linked only by decade, but both reflect the shifting weight of what a name or a number signified — one name losing social cachet as a meme consumed it, one number gaining global attention as a country's middle class pressed upward.
One name retires. One fortune compounds. The decade, as usual, chose winners and losers unevenly.
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Want to learn more about why correlations like “Babies named Karen in the US” vs “Chinese billionaires (Forbes)” don't prove causation? Read our guide to statistical thinking.
