Karl is a Germanic male given name.
It comes from Old High German, meaning 'man, husband, freeman' and was widely popularised in Central and Northern Europe by its status as a royal name, in particular through the Frankish king Charlemagne. It is popular in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, and was popularized by German-speaking descendants in the United States. Carl is another spelling of the name, and is popular in Nordic countries such as Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Norway and Sweden and largely popularized in the United States by Scandinavian and Italian (shortened from "Carlo") descendants. The name is a variant of the English Charles, and the Latin Carolus.
Notable people with the name include:
Contents
Nobles
Karl der Große (German for 'Charles the Great'), also known as Karolus Magnus in Latin and Charlemagne in French, (747–814), a Frankish King and the first Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire
Karl, Truchsess von Waldburg (1548–1593), Imperial minister
Karl, Count Chotek of Chotkow and Wognin (1783–1868), Austrian chancellor, Government President and school reformer of Bohemia
Karl, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg (1813–1878), German duke
Karl, Prince of Isenburg-Büdingen (1838–1899), head of the German house of Isenburg and Büdingen
Karl, Freiherr von Prel (1839–1899), German philosopher and writer on mysticism and the occult
Karl I of Austria (1887–1922), the last Emperor of Austria
Karl, 8th Prince of Löwenstein-Wertheim-Rosenberg (1904–1990), German Roman Catholic nobleman
Fictional characters
Karl C. Agathon, a character in the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica series
Karl Mayer, divorce attorney and ex-husband of Susan Mayer on Desperate Housewives
Karl Morgenthau, the first Marvel Comics supervillain known as Flag-Smasher
Karl Stromberg, the main antagonist in the 1977 James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me