Caressa
Feminine · “Dearest”
Caressa looks like the English verb and is almost certainly a respelling of Carissa, which is Latin. The twist is that the verb and the name really are related: both go back to the same Latin word for dear, by different roads and several centuries apart.
How old is the name Caressa?
Caressa first appears in US birth records in 1956 — 69 years ago. The typical Caressa alive today was born around 1988, making them about 37 years old. About 1,200 people named Caressa are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Caressa most popular?
Caressa peaked in 1987, reaching #1733 nationally. See the whole 1987 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From carus to Caressa
The story of Caressa
Latin carus meant dear or costly, and it went in every direction. Italian made caro and from it carezza, a caress, which French borrowed as caresse and English took in the seventeenth century. Spanish and Italian made cara and caro as forms of address, the way English uses dear at the top of a letter. The superlative carissima became a name in Latin-literate Europe and reached English as Carissa. So a family choosing this spelling because it sounded like an English word for a touch, and a family choosing it because it was a Latin name for a beloved child, were both reaching for the same Roman adjective without knowing it. That happens more often than etymology usually allows.
Meaningscholars disagree
Dearest
Carissa is the Latin superlative of carus, dear, so it means the dearest, and it was in use as a name from the seventeenth century. The English verb caress came in from Italian carezza, an affectionate gesture, which is built on the same carus. Whether a particular family meant the name or the verb is not recoverable, and the two turn out to share an ancestor either way.
How the name formed
- carus
- Carissa
- Caressa
Related forms: Carissa · Carissima
Pronouncing Caressa
kuh-RESS-uh
Three syllables with the stress in the middle. The doubled s keeps it unvoiced, which is the whole job of the doubling: a single s between vowels would be read as a z.
Nicknames for Caressa
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
- 1956
- Most girls named
- 198769 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1733reached in 1987
- Change vs 2010
- +10.0%11 in 2014, from 10
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.
Caressa in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Carissa in Italian — same name
- Carissima in Latin — related form
Caressas among us
people named Caressa 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
Caressa 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
- Cara and Rissa are two short forms in different registers and both stand alone.
- The meaning is warm, clear and can be given to a child in one word.
- The rhythm is easy and the name is never mispronounced once heard.
- The spelling reads as an English verb, and adults will make that connection first.
- Carissa and Karissa are both commoner, so spelling it out is permanent.
- The meaning is a superlative about the parents' feelings rather than a description of the child.
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Caressa
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Caressas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,200 people named Caressa are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Caressa in 2025?
- Caressa is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Caressa with classmates?
- Caressa will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More C names
The most-given names starting with C, all years combined.
Carol#2239 · Cynthia#1013 · Catherine#313 · Christine#1272 · Carolyn#1222 · Christina#770 · Charlotte#2 · Cheryl#4352
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Caressa? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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