karavsKarinaTell them apart

Quick tell: kara is a adjective, Karina is a name, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“kara” is an adjective and “Karina” is a name - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#21,657
“kara” frequency rank
#35,862
“Karina” frequency rank
57519
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature kara Karina
Definition lieb, wert, teuer, wertvoll, hold, herzig weiblicher Vorname

Letter map: kara vs Karina

Shared letters muted; letters that set kara and Karina apart highlighted. Shared run: 4. kara runs 4 letters (CVCV) against Karina's 6 (CVCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
kara
6 ch
Karina

Grammar separator: kara vs Karina

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: kara is anadjective and Karinaaname. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 57519, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

kara is recorded at frequency rank #21,657, classified as anadj. Karina is at rank #35,862, tagged as aname, pronounced [kaˈʁiːna].

Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.

With a confusion score of 57519, this pair ranks #898,247 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of kara vs Karina

Shared letters: akr. Private to "kara": -. Private to "Karina": in.

"kara" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "Karina" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • kara ← akra · kaar · karra · kkara · kraa
  • Karina ← akrina · kairna · karian · karinna · karnia · karrina · kkarina · kraina

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "kara" for "Karina" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "kara" is an adjective and "Karina" a name, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "kara" or "Karina" show up more?
"kara" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #21,657 in our German list, against #35,862 for "Karina". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pair "kara" vs "Karina" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "kara" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Karina" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #898,247 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "kara" and "Karina" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Karina vs Karolina". Nearby pair
  • Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes

Confusion rank #898,247 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list