Clarinda
Feminine · “Bright”
Clarinda was made on paper. It takes the Latin word for bright and finishes it with -inda, an ending that means nothing at all, invented by poets who wanted names that sounded classical without belonging to any actual Greek or Roman. It has been a name in an epic poem, a private name between two correspondents, and a town in Iowa.
How old is the name Clarinda?
Clarinda was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Clarinda alive today was born around 1953, making them about 72 years old. About 800 people named Clarinda are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Clarinda most popular?
Clarinda peaked in 1880, reaching #679 nationally. See the whole 1880 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From clarus to Clarinda
The story of Clarinda
Edmund Spenser used the name in the fifth book of The Faerie Queene, where Clarinda serves Radigund, an Amazon queen who defeats knights and then sets them to spin wool in women's clothes; Clarinda is sent to negotiate with the captured Artegall and falls for him herself. From there the name lived in pastoral verse for two centuries. Its most famous bearer was not born with it. Agnes Maclehose, an Edinburgh woman separated from her husband, corresponded with Robert Burns for a year under the name Clarinda while he wrote as Sylvander, and the poem that closed the affair, Ae Fond Kiss, is among the best-known things he ever wrote. American parents took the name up in the nineteenth century, and a county seat in Iowa still carries it.
Meaning
Bright, clear
The first part is Latin clarus, bright or clear, the root behind Clara, Clare, clarity and declare. The -inda is decoration, an ending borrowed from Italian and Spanish verse that English poets fastened onto Latin roots to make names for shepherdesses. It carries no sense of its own, which is why Clarinda, Dorinda, Belinda and Florinda all sound like sisters and none of them means anything as a whole word.
How the name formed
- clarus
- Clara
- Clarinda
Related forms: Clarinda · Clarinda · Clarinda
Pronouncing Clarinda
kluh-RIN-duh
Three syllables with the stress firmly in the middle. The first vowel reduces to almost nothing in American speech, which is why the name is sometimes heard as Klarinda and sometimes as Clrinda.
Nicknames for Clarinda
High
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 girls named
- 195532 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #679reached in 1880
- Change vs 2002
- −16.7%5 in 2006, from 6
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.
Clarinda in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Clarinda in Spanish — same name
- Clarinda in Italian — same name
- Clarinda in Portuguese — same name
Clarindas among us
people named Clarinda 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
Clarinda 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
- Long and formal in writing, but easy in three syllables when spoken, with the stress in the natural English place.
- Several short forms pulling in different directions, from the very plain Clara to the unusual Rinda.
- It has a documented literary history that most rare names cannot offer, and a real correspondence behind it.
- The -inda ending sounds Victorian to most modern American ears, which is either the point or the problem.
- It will be heard as Clarissa and Belinda on first meeting, and both are more common.
- Nothing in the name is meaningful past the first syllable, so anyone hoping for a deep etymology will be disappointed.
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Clarinda
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Clarindas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 800 people named Clarinda are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Clarinda in 2025?
- Clarinda is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Clarinda with classmates?
- Clarinda 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 Clarinda? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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