Clarissa
Feminine · “Bright”
Clarissa is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 40,484 girls against 21 boys since 1880.
Clarissa is the long, Latinate stretch of Clara — three easy syllables with the stress landing softly in the middle. It gave Samuel Richardson the title of his 1748 novel, one of the longest in English, and Virginia Woolf the first name of Mrs Dalloway. Between those two books, the name has been read aloud in English for nearly three hundred years.
How old is the name Clarissa?
Clarissa was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Clarissa alive today was born around 1993, making them about 32 years old. About 37,000 people named Clarissa are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Clarissa most popular?
Clarissa peaked in 1994, reaching #237 nationally. Today it ranks #1113, 876 places below that high. See the whole 1994 chart.
Clarissa appears on this list:
Where it comes from
From Clarus to Clarissa
The story of Clarissa
The root is the Latin adjective clarus, which produced the name Clara, borne by Saint Clare of Assisi in the thirteenth century and carried through medieval Europe. From Clara came the French form Clarice, which appears in the Old French Charlemagne romances, and Clarissa is that name given a Latin ending — the sort of dressing-up scholars and novelists did freely in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Samuel Richardson's Clarissa, published in 1748, fixed the spelling in English for good, and Woolf's Clarissa Dalloway kept it in literary circulation nearly two centuries later. An American children's television series of the early nineties put it back in daily earshot for a generation.
Meaning
Bright, clear
From Latin clarus, 'clear, bright, famous', the same root behind Clara, Clare and Clarice — and behind ordinary English words like clarity and declare.
How the name formed
- Clarus
- Clara
- Clarice
- Clarissa
Related forms: Clarisse · Clarisa · Clarissa · Klarissa · Klarysa · Clarice
Pronouncing Clarissa
kluh-RISS-uh
Stress on the middle syllable. The first vowel reduces almost to nothing in American speech; some speakers give it a fuller KLAR- instead.
Nicknames for Clarissa
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
- 19961,157 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #237reached in 1994
- Change vs 2022
- −13.8%212 in 2025, from 246
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.
Clarissa in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Clarisse in French — same name
- Clarisa in Spanish — same name
- Clarissa in Italian — same name
- Klarissa in German — spelling variant
- Klarysa in Polish — same name
- Clarice in English — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Florida.
Clarissas among us
people named Clarissa are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 7,581 born in 2025 was named Clarissa
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Ila test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Clarissa's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Ila climbed just as high around 1903, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Ila's path sketches the road Clarissa is walking now.
Clarissa 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
Where Clarissa is headed
Clarissa is easing off slowly — about 20% fewer babies a year by 2030 if the trend continues.
Medium confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Clarissa beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Clarissa in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- An unbroken record in English since the eighteenth century, so it reads as familiar rather than newly coined.
- Recognizable across French, Spanish, Italian, German and Polish with only small changes of spelling.
- Several established short forms that go different directions — Clara, Claire, Rissa — so the child has real choice.
- Long and formal on paper, easy and casual in three syllables when spoken.
- The spelling has close rivals: Clarisa, Clarice, Charissa and Karissa all exist, so expect to confirm the two S's and one L fairly often.
- Richardson's novel is a tragedy of great length, and readers who know it may bring that weight to the name. Most people will not have read it.
- It is stepping back from its high point, so the Clarissas most Americans have met are grown women rather than children — pleasant enough if you want a name that is known but not repeated in the classroom.
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What they receive
Someone added a name to your list
Clarissa
Feminine · #1113 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Clarissas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 37,000 people named Clarissa are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Clarissa in 2025?
- Clarissa ranks #1113 among US girl names in 2025, with 212 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Clarissa?
- About 1 in every 7,581 US girls born in 2025 was named Clarissa — 212 in all.
- Will my child share the name Clarissa with classmates?
- Clarissa will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Clarissa
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Betty#1113 · Mollie#1113 · Leena#1113 · Kacey#1117 · Ines#1109 · Erika#1109 · Imogen#1117 · Icelynn#1109
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Clarissa? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Clarissa and another name?
See them side by side — full stats, history and a gentle verdict.
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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
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