Carita
Feminine · “dearness”
Carita is a Latin word that is also a Nordic name, and an American family using it at the turn of the last century could have meant either. In Sweden and Finland it is an ordinary given name with its own name day. In Latin it is one of the largest words in the language — the one the Bible translators used for the highest kind of love and English rendered, for four hundred years, as charity.
How old is the name Carita?
Carita first appears in US birth records in 1900 — 125 years ago. The typical Carita alive today was born around 1959, making them about 66 years old. About 700 people named Carita are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Carita most popular?
Carita peaked in 1900, reaching #1723 nationally. See the whole 1900 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Latin caritas, from a word meaning dear to Carita
The story of Carita
The Nordic route is the one people forget. Carita has been used in Sweden and Finland for well over a century as a name in its own right, not as a shortening or a variant of anything, and Finland's official almanac gives it a day of its own — a system that has no equivalent in English and that fixes a name's status in a way no American name ever gets. So the same six letters are, depending on which side of an ocean you are standing on, a piece of theological Latin and an ordinary Tuesday-morning name that a schoolteacher would write on a register without looking up.
Meaningscholars disagree
dearness, or costly affection
The Latin noun is built on a word meaning dear in both senses, valued and expensive, and it is the word Jerome chose to translate the Greek term for selfless love. English took it as charity, which has since narrowed a great deal. Whether an American Carita in the record was named from the Latin, from a Scandinavian relative, or simply from the sound is not something a birth record can tell you, and the name arrived in America at a moment when both routes were open.
How the name formed
- Latin caritas, from a word meaning dear
- used by Bible translators for selfless love
- Carita established as a Nordic given name
- appears in American records around 1900
- never common, and never quite disappears
Related forms: Carita · Karita · Carita · Caridad
Pronouncing Carita
kuh-REE-tuh
Three syllables with the stress in the middle. Swedish speakers front it, KAH-ri-ta, which sounds like a different name to an English ear.
Nicknames for Carita
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
- 1900
- Most girls named
- 197331 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1723reached in 1900
- Change vs 1995
- 0.0%5 in 1999, from 5
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.
Carita in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Carita in Swedish — same name
- Karita in Finnish — spelling variant
- Carita in Italian — same name
- Caridad in Spanish — related form
Caritas among us
people named Carita 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
Carita 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
- It is soft, symmetrical and easy to say in English, Spanish, Italian and Swedish alike.
- Cari and Rita are both waiting inside it and both stand alone.
- It carries a serious word behind it without announcing that it does.
- It will be heard as Carita, Clarita and Carrie by turns.
- The Latin meaning is real but the connection to any particular American family's choice is not.
- The stress placement differs between the English and the Scandinavian readings.
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What they receive
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Carita
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Caritas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 700 people named Carita are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Carita in 2025?
- Carita is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Carita with classmates?
- Carita 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 Carita? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Carita and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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