Clara
Masculine · “clear”
Clara is given to girls far more often — 300,524 girls against 1,016 boys since 1880. See Clara as a girl name
Clara Schumann was on the road for sixty years. She gave her first public concert at nine, married a composer against her father's opposition after a lawsuit, raised eight children, kept the household solvent by touring while her husband was in an asylum, and went on performing into her seventies — and stopped composing at about forty because she had decided a woman could not.
How old is the name Clara?
Clara was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Clara alive today was born around 1924, making them about 101 years old. About 200 people named Clara are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Clara most popular?
Clara peaked in 1886, reaching #470 nationally. See the whole 1886 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From a Latin adjective meaning clear or bright to Clara
The story of Clara
She wrote in her diary that she had once believed she had creative gift, but had given up the idea: a woman must not wish to compose, and why should she expect to be the one to do it. She was nineteen when she wrote it. The music she did write — a concerto at fourteen, a piano trio, songs — went unplayed for a century and is now performed regularly. She also effectively invented the modern piano recital: playing from memory, alone on the platform, programs built around the composer rather than around the performer's tricks.
Meaning
clear, bright
The Latin adjective means clear in every sense the English word has: transparent, audible, obvious, famous. It gives English clarify, declare, clarion and clear itself. As a name it spread across Catholic Europe with a thirteenth-century saint and became enormous in nineteenth-century America, and it is now back in the top hundred after three generations away.
How the name formed
- a Latin adjective meaning clear or bright
- a thirteenth-century saint spreads the name across Europe
- an enormous American wave at the end of the nineteenth century
- three generations out of use
- back in the top hundred in this century
Related forms: Chiara · Claire · Clara · Klara
Pronouncing Clara
KLAIR-uh
Two syllables, stress at the front. The first vowel divides the English-speaking world — KLAR-uh in Britain and Ireland, KLAIR-uh in most of America — and both are entirely correct.
Nicknames for Clara
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
- 1880
- Most boys named
- 192930 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #470reached in 1886
- Change vs 2011
- −28.6%5 in 2019, 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.
Clara in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Chiara in Italian — same name
- Claire in French — same name
- Clara in Spanish — same name
- Klara in German — spelling variant
Claras among us
people named Clara 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
Clara 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 works without alteration in English, Spanish, German, Italian and Scandinavian.
- The meaning is clear, positive and easy to explain to a child.
- It is old enough to be beyond fashion and current enough not to sound like a costume.
- The first vowel is said two ways and she will hear both.
- It is rising fast, so it will be commoner among her contemporaries than in the record.
- Clara, Claire and Clare are close enough that all three will be substituted.
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What they receive
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Clara
Masculine
Frequently asked
- How many Claras are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 200 people named Clara are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Clara in 2025?
- Clara is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 boy names.
- Will my child share the name Clara with classmates?
- Clara 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 Clara? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Clara and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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