Calandra
Feminine · “a lark”
A calandra is a lark. The word is the ordinary Italian and Spanish name for a particular large lark of the Mediterranean, it comes down from Greek, and the personal name is simply the bird — which puts it in a very small set of names taken directly from a species rather than from a general word for a creature.
How old is the name Calandra?
Calandra first appears in US birth records in 1962 — 63 years ago. The typical Calandra alive today was born around 1979, making them about 46 years old. About 1,700 people named Calandra are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Calandra most popular?
Calandra peaked in 1972, reaching #1096 nationally. See the whole 1972 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From kalandra to Calandra
The story of Calandra
The bird sings almost only while climbing. A skylark rises nearly vertically, hangs at height and sings continuously through the ascent and the hover, sometimes for several minutes together, and then drops silently. That is what the song is for — it is a display flight, and singing on the ground would not do the job. So the observation that has been in European poetry for a thousand years, that the lark sings as it goes up, is not a poetic flourish but a fairly precise description of how the animal behaves.
Meaning
a lark
From a Greek word for the bird, through Latin into the Romance languages. The species it names is real and specific, which is unusual for a bird-name used as a personal name.
How the name formed
- kalandra
- Calandra
Related forms: Calandra · Calandria
Pronouncing Calandra
kuh-LAN-druh
Three syllables with the stress in the middle. Italian and Spanish put it in the same place, which makes the name stable across the languages that use it.
Nicknames for Calandra
Moderate
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1962
- Most girls named
- 1972103 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1096reached in 1972
- Change vs 2016
- −16.7%5 in 2019, from 6
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Calandra in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Calandra in Italian — same name
- Calandria in Spanish — same name
Calandras among us
people named Calandra are estimated to be alive in the US today
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Calandra sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- The meaning is concrete, specific and rather lovely.
- Callie and Andra both sit inside it as complete short forms.
- The rhythm is even and the name carries well.
- Calandra and Calandria both appear and the spelling gets queried.
- The bird is unfamiliar to most English speakers, so the meaning needs explaining.
- It is closely tied to the decades of its American use.
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Calandra
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Calandras are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,700 people named Calandra are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Calandra in 2025?
- Calandra is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Calandra with classmates?
- Calandra will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More C names
The most-given names starting with C, all years combined.
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Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Calandra? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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