Carissa
Feminine · “dearest”
Carissa is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 28,447 girls against 12 boys since 1880.
Carissa is dearest, in Latin — the superlative of carus, the word behind 'caress' and 'charity'. It is one of very few names that is grammatically a superlative rather than a noun.
How old is the name Carissa?
Carissa first appears in US birth records in 1949 — 76 years ago. The typical Carissa alive today was born around 1992, making them about 33 years old. About 28,000 people named Carissa are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Carissa most popular?
Carissa peaked in 1992, reaching #240 nationally. Today it ranks #3342, 3,102 places below that high. See the whole 1992 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From carus to Carissa
The story of Carissa
Carissa appears as a name in English-language poetry and fiction from the sixteenth century onward — Spenser uses a form of it — but its life as an ordinary given name is twentieth-century and American. It rose through the 1960s and 1970s alongside Marissa, Melissa and Clarissa, which share its ending and its rhythm, and it peaked in the mid-1990s.
Meaningscholars disagree
dearest, most beloved
The usual reading is the Latin carissima, 'dearest', the superlative of carus, 'dear'. A competing account derives it from the Greek charis, 'grace' — the root of Charity and Karis — which would make it a cousin rather than the same word. Both are plausible and the name is modern enough that neither is documented.
How the name formed
- carus
- carissima
- Carissa
Related forms: Carissima · Karissa · Clarissa
Pronouncing Carissa
kuh-RISS-uh
Three syllables, stress in the middle. Carissa and Karissa are said identically.
Nicknames for Carissa
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
- 1949
- Most girls named
- 19921,155 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #240reached in 1992
- Change vs 2023
- −19.3%46 in 2025, from 57
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.
Carissa in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Carissima in Italian — related form
- Karissa in English — spelling variant
- Clarissa in English — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Florida.
Carissas among us
people named Carissa are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 34,941 born in 2025 was named Carissa
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Carissa
- #3342
- Carissa on the 2025 chart
- #856
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Carissa went to 46 girls in 2025, but Karissa is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 104, which makes it the 856th most-given girls’ name of the year — 2,486 places above the chart.
- Karissa58
- Carissa46
About 1 girl in 15,454 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 34,941 for Carissa 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 Laurel test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Carissa's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Laurel climbed just as high around 1956, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Laurel's path sketches the road Carissa is walking now.
Carissa 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 Carissa is headed
Carissa is easing off slowly — about 24% fewer babies a year by 2030 if the trend continues.
Medium 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.
Carissa beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Carissa in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- The meaning is warm, transparent and unusually emphatic — a superlative rather than a description.
- Three syllables with a strong middle, a rhythm that carries well.
- Rissa and Cari are both available and pull in different directions.
- The origin is split between a Latin superlative and a Greek noun.
- Karissa and Marissa are both close enough to cause confusion.
- It is closely dated to the 1990s in American records.
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What they receive
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Carissa
Feminine · #3342 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Carissas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 28,000 people named Carissa are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Carissa?
- Carissa is one of 2 recorded spellings. Karissa is the more common one — 58 births in 2025 against 46 for Carissa.
- How popular is the name Carissa in 2025?
- Carissa ranks #3342 among US girl names in 2025, with 46 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Carissa?
- About 1 in every 34,941 US girls born in 2025 was named Carissa — 46 in all.
- Will my child share the name Carissa with classmates?
- Carissa will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Carissa
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Zorah#3342 · Monique#3342 · Kinleigh#3342 · Emmelyn#3342 · Zyana#3342 · Swara#3342 · Azaleah#3342 · Elenora#3342
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Carissa? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Carissa and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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