The first name Karen peaked in popularity in 1965, which means that in 2020, most people named Karen are middle aged.

So that’s kind of a rough foundation for what the first name Karen might signal to people.

By tracing the origins of Karen up until the Central Park incident, you can see how two separate threads of meaning converged to make Karen the label for an officious, entitled, white woman.

The first comes from African American communities, where certain generic first names have long been a shorthand for “a white woman to be wary of because she won’t hesitate to wield privilege at the expense of others.”

A Karen by many other names

The Central Park incident created the perfect moment for these two strands to come together.