Clea
Feminine · “glory”
Clea is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 815 girls against 10 boys since 1880.
Clea is short, obscure and older than it looks. It appears in Plutarch, who addressed two of his works to a priestess of Delphi named Clea, and it survives as a clipping of Cleopatra and Cleo. Its American peak is 1936, which puts it well before the novel most often associated with it.
How old is the name Clea?
Clea first appears in US birth records in 1914 — 111 years ago. The typical Clea alive today was born around 1998, making them about 27 years old. About 700 people named Clea are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Clea most popular?
Clea peaked in 1936, reaching #2857 nationally. Today it ranks #5917, 3,060 places below that high. See the whole 1936 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From kleos to Clea
The story of Clea
Plutarch, writing around the year 100, dedicated his essay on Isis and Osiris and his collection on the virtues of women to a woman named Clea, a priestess at Delphi — which makes this one of the earliest attested bearers of a very short name. Cleopatra kept the front element in general circulation. The name was rare in English until the twentieth century. Lawrence Durrell's Clea, the fourth volume of the Alexandria Quartet, appeared in 1960 and is often given as the source of the modern name, but the American record shows it in use decades earlier, so the novel reinforced rather than created it.
Meaningscholars disagree
glory
The likeliest root is Greek kleos, 'glory, renown, what is heard about a person' — one of the central words of the Homeric poems, where glory is precisely what survives a hero. It gives Cleopatra, 'glory of the father', and Cleo. Whether the modern Clea descends from Plutarch's Clea, from a clipping of Cleopatra, or from an independent modern formation cannot be determined. The root is reasonably secure; the route is not.
How the name formed
- kleos
- Kleopatra
- Cleo
- Clea
Related forms: Kleia · Cleo · Clea
Pronouncing Clea
KLEE-uh
Two syllables, stress on the first, with a long e. A one-syllable KLAY is occasionally produced by readers treating the ea as in steak, but the two-syllable version is standard.
Nicknames for Clea
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
- 1914
- Most girls named
- 202226 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #2857reached in 1936
- Change vs 2023
- −9.1%20 in 2025, from 22
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.
Clea in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Kleia in Greek — related form
- Cleo in English — related form
- Clea in French — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: California.
Cleas among us
people named Clea are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 80,363 born in 2025 was named Clea
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Clea
- #5917
- Clea on the 2025 chart
- #930
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Clea went to 20 girls in 2025, but Klea is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 30, which makes it the 930th most-given girls’ name of the year — 4,987 places above the chart.
- Clea20
- Klea10
About 1 girl in 53,576 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 80,363 for Clea itself.
Spellings are grouped by a fixed rule that folds interchangeable English spellings of one sound (ck/k, ph/f, x/ks, a non-initial y for i) and keeps vowels apart, so Sean and Shawn stay separate names. It errs towards splitting: a family here is never larger than the truth. SSA national data, 2025. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Marycatherine test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Clea's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Marycatherine climbed just as high around 1914, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Marycatherine's path sketches the road Clea is walking now.
Clea 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
Clea beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Clea in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Four letters, two syllables, and easy to spell after one hearing.
- The Greek root is a genuinely important word with a clear meaning.
- Cleo and Cleopatra are both available as longer alternatives.
- It is easily heard as Leah, Clea or Chloe.
- The route from the Greek root is not documented, so the meaning needs a qualifier.
- It is rare enough in the United States to be spelled out every time.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Clea
Feminine · #5917 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Cleas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 700 people named Clea are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Clea?
- Clea is the most-used spelling in US records — 20 of the 30 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Klea.
- How popular is the name Clea in 2025?
- Clea ranks #5917 among US girl names in 2025, with 20 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Clea?
- About 1 in every 80,363 US girls born in 2025 was named Clea — 20 in all.
- Will my child share the name Clea with classmates?
- Clea will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Clea
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Elda#5917 · Saloma#5917 · Fawn#5917 · Sarafina#5917 · Jaymie#5917 · Jania#5917 · Kimberlynn#5917 · Patsy#5917
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Clea? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Clea and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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