Cara
Feminine · Latin roots · “dear”
Cara is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 53,305 girls against 62 boys since 1880.
Cara is the Italian word for "dear" pressed into service as a name — still an everyday endearment in Italy, and spelled exactly the same as the Irish word for "friend." It has been on American records since the nineteenth century without a long gap, two syllables that end the way Ella and Nora do. Short enough to say across a playground, plain enough to spell once and be done.
How old is the name Cara?
Cara first appears in US birth records in 1882 — 143 years ago. The typical Cara alive today was born around 1984, making them about 41 years old. About 50,500 people named Cara are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Cara most popular?
Cara peaked in 1985, reaching #184 nationally. Today it ranks #1326, 1,142 places below that high. See the whole 1985 chart.
Cara appears on these lists:
Works in Irish families too:
Where it comes from
From carus (Latin) to Cara
The story of Cara
Latin carus, "dear," gave Italian caro and its feminine cara, which stayed in daily speech as a term of affection — cara mia, my dear — rather than a formal name. English speakers borrowed it as a given name in the nineteenth century, part of the same taste for warm Italian and Latin words that produced Carina and Carissa. In Ireland and among Irish-American families it landed on its feet for a different reason: cara is the Irish for friend, so the name arrived already meaning something. The Kara spelling followed later and has traveled alongside it ever since.
Meaning
dear, beloved
The name comes from Italian cara, the feminine of caro, "dear," from Latin carus. Separately and by coincidence, cara is also the Irish word for "friend" — a real overlap, and one many families with Irish ties lean on. Spanish speakers meet the same four letters as the ordinary word for "face."
How the name formed
- carusLatin
- caro / caraItalian
- Cara
- Kara
Related forms: Cara · Kara · Cara · Carina · Carissa
Pronouncing Cara
KAR-uh
Two live pronunciations in the US: KAR-uh, rhyming with Sara, and KAH-ruh, rhyming with Farrah. Italian speakers use the second. Whichever you pick, expect to state it now and then.
Nicknames for Cara
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
- 1882
- Most girls named
- 19841,440 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #184reached in 1985
- Change vs 2022
- −19.2%168 in 2025, from 208
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.
Cara in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Cara in Italian — same name
- Kara in English — spelling variant
- Cara in Irish — related form
- Carina in Italian — related form
- Carissa in Italian — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, New York, Texas.
Caras among us
people named Cara are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 9,567 born in 2025 was named Cara
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Cara
- #1326
- Cara on the 2025 chart
- #591
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Cara went to 168 girls in 2025, but Kara and Carah are the same name said out loud. Together the 3 spellings went to 399, which makes it the 591st most-given girls’ name of the year — 735 places above the chart.
About 1 girl in 4,028 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 9,567 for Cara itself.
Spellings are grouped by a fixed rule that folds interchangeable English spellings of one sound (ck/k, ph/f, x/ks, a non-initial y for i) and keeps vowels apart, so Sean and Shawn stay separate names. It errs towards splitting: a family here is never larger than the truth. SSA national data, 2025. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Lee test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Cara's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Lee climbed just as high around 1955, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Lee's path sketches the road Cara is walking now.
Cara sits in the calm middle of the cycle — neither chasing a wave nor sliding off one. Middle-of-the-cycle names age slowly and predictably.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Cara is headed
Cara is easing off slowly — about 18% fewer babies a year by 2030 if the trend continues.
High confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Cara beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Cara in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Two syllables, four letters, and a spelling most English speakers get right on the first hearing.
- Carries a plain meaning in two languages at once — "dear" in Italian, "friend" in Irish — which is unusual and easy to explain to a child.
- An unbroken presence in American records since the nineteenth century, so it reads as established rather than newly minted.
- At home in Italian, Irish and English-speaking settings without needing to change form.
- Familiar enough to be recognized everywhere, uncommon enough that a classroom is unlikely to hold two.
- The CARE-uh / CAH-ruh split is real and will not resolve itself. Teachers, doctors and new colleagues will guess, and she will spend a lifetime gently correcting roughly half of them.
- Cara and Kara sound identical, so forms and email addresses will arrive with the wrong initial letter fairly often.
- Most American Caras are now in their forties, which means the name currently reads as a grown woman's name more than a baby's — pleasant company for a child, but worth knowing.
- In Spanish, cara is the ordinary word for "face," which can raise a smile in Spanish-speaking company. Nothing unkind attaches to it, but it is there.
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What they receive
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Cara
Feminine · Latin roots · #1326 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Caras are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 50,500 people named Cara are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Cara?
- Cara is one of 3 recorded spellings. Kara is the more common one — 226 births in 2025 against 168 for Cara.
- How popular is the name Cara in 2025?
- Cara ranks #1326 among US girl names in 2025, with 168 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Cara?
- About 1 in every 9,567 US girls born in 2025 was named Cara — 168 in all.
- Will my child share the name Cara with classmates?
- Cara will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Cara
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Jhene#1326 · Madden#1326 · Safiya#1326 · Madisyn#1326 · Farrah#1326 · Dina#1326 · Janie#1326 · Liah#1318
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Cara? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Cara and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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