Entry № 5251 · Sanskrit origin

Karma Karma — Meaning, Origin & Baby Name Popularity

/ KAR-mah /
Gender
Girl
Origin
Sanskrit
Meaning
"Action / destiny"
Syllables
2
First recorded
Ancient (Sanskrit)

A name that means "action / destiny".

Karma is from the Sanskrit karman (कर्मन् — action, deed) — central concept in Hindu + Buddhist + Jain + Sikh traditions referring to the law of moral causation (every action produces a corresponding effect across lifetimes). Karma is one of the Bhutanese + Tibetan feminine + unisex names — central to traditional Vajrayana Buddhist heritage.

Action / destiny (Sanskrit-Buddhist).

The name in its native script.

कर्म
Transliteration
Karman
Pronunciation
/ ˈkɑːr.mə /
Root
Grammatical form

Where Karma stands.

Karma does not currently appear in the US Social Security Administration's top 1,000 girls' names, so we don't publish a US rank or birth count for it. That says nothing about the name's standing elsewhere in the world — only that it sits outside the ranked US data we rely on.

Karmas before her.

Real people
Karma Phuntsho
Bhutanese scholar + History of Bhutan 2013.
born 1968
In fiction
Karma
Sanskrit-Buddhist action / destiny.

Names connected to Karma.

The number behind Karma.

8

The Visionary

In Pythagorean numerology the letters of Karma reduce to 8, The Visionary. This is a traditional interpretive system, not a factual claim about the name.