Clarine
Feminine · “clear”
Clarine is Clara with a French ending fastened on, and the woman who made the parent name famous is more interesting than the ending. Clare of Assisi ran away from a wealthy household at eighteen, founded an order, and then spent forty years fighting the church to be allowed to keep it poor. She wrote her own rule for it, which no woman had ever done, and it was approved two days before she died.
How old is the name Clarine?
Clarine first appears in US birth records in 1900 — 125 years ago. The typical Clarine alive today was born around 1929, making them about 96 years old. About 400 people named Clarine are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Clarine most popular?
Clarine peaked in 1923, reaching #922 nationally. See the whole 1923 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From The Latin word for clear and bright to Clarine
The story of Clarine
Clare of Assisi's fight was about money, and she won it by outliving everyone who opposed her. She had followed Francis into absolute poverty, and successive popes kept trying to give her order property on the reasonable grounds that women in an enclosed house needed an income. She kept refusing. She obtained a privilege of poverty, saw it eroded, obtained it again, and finally wrote her own rule setting the whole thing out, which Innocent the Fourth approved on her deathbed. That is the first rule for a religious order written by a woman, and the order still exists. Seven centuries later a pope named her the patron saint of television, on the strength of a story that when she was too ill to attend Mass she saw and heard it on the wall of her room, which is either the most literal patronage ever assigned or the most charming.
Meaning
clear, bright
The Latin word behind Clara means clear or bright, and by extension famous, which is a natural enough extension in a language where reputation and visibility were the same idea. The name is settled and has been in continuous use for eight centuries. The -ine ending here is a nineteenth-century American addition borrowed from French, and it adds no meaning at all; it lengthens the name and gives it a different rhythm, which was the point.
How the name formed
- The Latin word for clear and bright
- Clare and Clara across medieval Europe
- Clarine, with a French ending added in America
- Rare since the middle of the twentieth century
Related forms: Chiara · Claire · Clara · Klara
Pronouncing Clarine
kluh-REEN
Two syllables with the stress at the back, and the ending said as een rather than as ine. A minority say CLAIR-een with the stress at the front, treating it as Clare plus an ending, and both readings exist in American families.
Nicknames for Clarine
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
- 192363 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #922reached in 1923
- Change vs 1968
- +60.0%8 in 1975, 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.
Clarine in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Chiara in Italian — related form
- Claire in French — related form
- Clara in Spanish — related form
- Klara in German — related form
Clarines among us
people named Clarine 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
Clarine 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 carries a saint's name with a genuinely remarkable history attached, without being the plain form everyone has.
- The back stress gives it a shape that the shorter parent name does not have.
- Clara is available immediately for anyone who wants the familiar version.
- It will be read as Clarice, Corinne or Claudine by people meeting it in writing.
- The stress is unsettled between the front and the back, so it needs saying aloud before it is chosen.
- It is firmly of its decades and has not had the revival that Clara itself has enjoyed.
Nobody names a baby alone.
Put Clarine to the vote.
Add it to a family vote or a couple’s swipe deck — the other person gets one card, a simple answer and room to say why. No app, no account for them.
Only the people you invite can see your list.
Already decided on Clarine? Hide it among decoys and let them guess.
What they receive
Someone added a name to your list
Clarine
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Clarines are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 400 people named Clarine are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Clarine in 2025?
- Clarine is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Clarine with classmates?
- Clarine 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 Clarine? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Clarine and another name?
See them side by side — full stats, history and a gentle verdict.
Compare side by sideIn a hurry? Just pick a winner — one tap, no sign-up, and you see how everyone else voted.
Weighing a whole shortlist? Add the rest in the builder, or settle it with a bracket.
Cast your vote
Which one would you pick?
Your gut first, the numbers after — the split shows once you pick.
US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
No advertising trackers and no data sellinghow we handle your dataindependent and founder-run, about Name Battle