Carmen: Name Meaning and Origin - SheKnows
Find out the meaning and the origin of the name, Carmen on SheKnows.com. Carmen is one of those "sweet spot" names: familiar enough to not be considered unusual, but still used rarely enough to be distinctive (and your little Carmen won't run into a lot of other Carmens during her lifetime). Even at its peak in 1968, it ranked just out of the top 100 most popular girl names at #142.Its origins are from the Hebrew word karmel, meaning "garden" — mentioned in the Old Testament as the name of a mountain, Mt. Carmel. From there, it morphed into the Medieval Spanish version, Carmen, used to refer to the Virgin Mary (she was called Nuestra Señora del Carmen, or "Our Lady of Mount Carmel).But there's also an alternate meaning — the word carmen means "song" or "poem" in Latin.Which is fitting, considering that probably the most famous use of Carmen is in George Bizet's 1875 opera bearing the same name.