Khara
Feminine
Khara adds a letter that signals a foreign origin the name does not have: the kh spelling belongs to languages with a throat sound English lacks, and this name has no such sound in it. One Arabic word that really does carry that letter has traveled further than almost any other.
How old is the name Khara?
Khara first appears in US birth records in 1975 — 50 years ago. The typical Khara alive today was born around 1982, making them about 43 years old. About 700 people named Khara are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Khara most popular?
Khara peaked in 1977, reaching #1295 nationally. See the whole 1977 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
Origin, sound and short forms
Our story of Khara
Alcohol started as eye make-up. The Arabic al-kuhl named the fine black powder of antimony used as kohl, ground so fine that the word came to mean any extremely fine powder produced by refining. Medieval European alchemists took the term for the purest essence extracted from a substance by any means, and since distillation was the great refining technique, alcohol came to mean the spirit distilled off a fermented liquid. Only in the eighteenth century did it settle on that one substance. The word is therefore three metaphors deep: from a cosmetic, to a standard of fineness, to a distilled essence, to ethanol. Kohl itself is still kohl in English, so the language has the same Arabic word twice, at opposite ends of a chemistry lab.
Meaningnot established
Not established
No source is documented. It respells Cara or Kara, which themselves have competing derivations from Italian, Irish and Latin. The kh is a visual device borrowed from the transliteration of Arabic, Persian and Russian names and does not indicate any of those languages here.
Pronouncing Khara
KAR-uh
Two syllables with the stress at the front. The h is completely silent; the kh here says a plain k and not the throat sound the spelling suggests.
Nicknames for Khara
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
- 1975
- Most girls named
- 197790 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1295reached in 1977
- Change vs 2018
- −44.4%5 in 2022, from 9
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.
Kharas among us
people named Khara 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
Khara 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
- Two syllables with front stress is easy to say and quick.
- Five letters make it compact on any form.
- The sound is entirely familiar even where the spelling is not.
- Kara, Cara and Karah are all commoner and will be written for it.
- The kh suggests a pronunciation the name does not have.
- Nothing records its origin, so the meaning question has no answer.
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Khara
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Kharas 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 Khara are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Khara in 2025?
- Khara is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Khara with classmates?
- Khara will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More K names
The most-given names starting with K, all years combined.
Karen#1279 · Kimberly#302 · Kathleen#1150 · Katherine#186 · Kelly#851 · Kathryn#729 · Kayla#364 · Kathy#3249
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Khara? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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