Cera
Feminine
The story that sincere means without wax, from sculptors filling cracks in marble, is one of the most repeated false etymologies in English. Cera is Latin for wax, and the story is still not true.
How old is the name Cera?
Cera first appears in US birth records in 1979 — 46 years ago. The typical Cera alive today was born around 1998, making them about 27 years old. About 1,400 people named Cera are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Cera most popular?
Cera peaked in 1995, reaching #1550 nationally. Today it ranks #10917, 9,367 places below that high. See the whole 1995 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
Origin, sound and short forms
Our story of Cera
The wax story is told about Roman sculptors and honest merchants and appears in sermons, business books and speeches, and it fails on the linguistics. Sincerus is a single Latin word, and the sine cera analysis would require a compound that does not appear anywhere in Latin; the likelier derivation involves a prefix meaning one and a root meaning growth, giving something like of one growth, pure, unmixed. False etymologies of this kind survive because they are memorable and because they carry a moral, which a true etymology rarely does. The name Cera has nothing to do with any of it: it is most likely a respelling of Sara or of the Irish Ciara, and the Latin word is a coincidence of spelling.
Meaningnot established
Not established
Cera is most plausibly a respelling of Sara or Ciara, or a short form of Cerise or Ceridwen. The Latin cera, wax, is a homograph rather than a source. The popular derivation of sincere from sine cera, without wax, is not supported by the evidence. The peak is 1995.
Pronouncing Cera
SAIR-uh
Two syllables, stress on the first. Some say KAIR-uh, reading the c as a k; both occur for this spelling.
Nicknames for Cera
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
- 1979
- Most girls named
- 199598 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1550reached in 1995
- Change vs 2024
- 0.0%8 in 2025, from 8
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.
Cera in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Sera in English — spelling variant
- Ciara in Irish — related form
Ceras among us
people named Cera are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 200,908 born in 2025 was named Cera
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Cera
- #10917
- Cera on the 2025 chart
- #900
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Cera went to 8 girls in 2025, but Sera, Serah and Serra and the rest below are the same name said out loud. Together the 5 spellings went to 60, which makes it the 900th most-given girls’ name of the year — 10,017 places above the chart.
About 1 girl in 26,788 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 200,908 for Cera 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 Fabienne test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Cera's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Fabienne climbed just as high around 1950, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Fabienne's path sketches the road Cera is walking now.
Cera 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
Cera beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Cera in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Four letters and two syllables.
- It works as a short, soft name in several traditions.
- The spelling is compact and distinctive.
- The initial c has two possible readings.
- Sara and Ciara are both more standard.
- It has no documented meaning.
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Cera
Feminine · #10917 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Ceras are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,400 people named Cera are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Cera?
- Cera is one of 5 recorded spellings. Sera is the more common one — 20 births in 2025 against 8 for Cera.
- How popular is the name Cera in 2025?
- Cera ranks #10917 among US girl names in 2025, with 8 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Cera?
- About 1 in every 200,908 US girls born in 2025 was named Cera — 8 in all.
- Will my child share the name Cera with classmates?
- Cera will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Cera
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Edythe#10917 · Tessie#10917 · Drusilla#10917 · Eugenie#10917 · Ivah#10917 · Karri#10917 · Claribel#10917 · Myrtle#10917
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Cera? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Cera and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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