Claire
Masculine · “bright”
Claire is given to girls far more often — 211,919 girls against 2,204 boys since 1880. See Claire as a girl name
The i is the whole difference between the English name and the French one. Clare is the older English spelling and Claire is the French, and although they are said identically in America the extra letter is not idle: it marks which side of the Channel the family took the name from, and it is the reason the two forms have kept separate lives.
How old is the name Claire?
Claire first appears in US birth records in 1885 — 140 years ago. The typical Claire alive today was born around 1928, making them about 97 years old. About 500 people named Claire are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Claire most popular?
Claire peaked in 1905, reaching #525 nationally. See the whole 1905 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From clarus to Claire
The story of Claire
There is a large Irish Clare that has nothing to do with any of this. County Clare takes its name from an Irish word meaning a flat place or a plank — most likely a board bridge across a river at Clarecastle — and the resemblance to the personal name is a complete coincidence of spelling. The two words come from different language families and met only when English orthography flattened them into the same five letters. That is worth knowing because the assumption runs the other way constantly: people meeting an Irish Clare assume the county was named for a woman, or that a woman was named for the county, and neither is true.
Meaning
bright, clear
From a Latin adjective that meant clear or bright and then, by an easy extension, famous. The name and the words clarity and declare all descend from it, which makes the sense unusually easy to demonstrate.
How the name formed
- clarus
- Clare
- Claire
Related forms: Claire · Chiara · Clara · Klara
Pronouncing Claire
KLAIR
One syllable. The i changes nothing audible in English, though French gives the vowel a slightly different quality that American speakers do not reproduce.
Nicknames for Claire
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
- 1885
- Most boys named
- 192375 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #525reached in 1905
- Change vs 2009
- −28.6%5 in 2021, from 7
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.
Claire in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Claire in French — same name
- Chiara in Italian — same name
- Clara in Spanish — same name
- Klara in German — same name
Claires among us
people named Claire 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
Claire 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
- One syllable, unambiguous in sound, and recognized across Europe.
- The meaning is bright and positive and easy to demonstrate from ordinary English words.
- It has stayed in use continuously rather than arriving with a fashion.
- Clare is equally standard, so the spelling will be queried for life.
- It is currently common enough that a child may not be the only one.
- The record holds a few boys as well, and the boy is much the smaller side.
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What they receive
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Claire
Masculine
Frequently asked
- How many Claires are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 500 people named Claire are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Claire in 2025?
- Claire is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 boy names.
- Will my child share the name Claire with classmates?
- Claire will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More C names
The most-given names starting with C, all years combined.
Charles#48 · Christopher#68 · Carl#1132 · Christian#96 · Caleb#58 · Cameron#76 · Carlos#150 · Clarence#1499
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Claire? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Claire and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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