Khiara
Feminine · “Italian "clear”
Khiara is three steps from an Italian word. Chiara means clear or bright in Italian and is the name of Saint Clare of Assisi; American English respelled it Kiara because the Italian ch is a hard K; and Khiara adds an h back in a different position, where it does nothing at all.
How old is the name Khiara?
Khiara first appears in US birth records in 1989 — 36 years ago. The typical Khiara alive today was born around 2008, making them about 17 years old. About 500 people named Khiara are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Khiara most popular?
Khiara peaked in 1999, reaching #4870 nationally. Today it ranks #7133, 2,263 places below that high. See the whole 1999 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From clarus to Khiara
The story of Khiara
The kh digraph in English represents a sound English does not have — the fricative in Arabic, Persian and Russian transliteration, as in Khan or Khalid. Attached to a name that has no such sound, it becomes a purely visual mark: Khiara, Khloe, Khadence. What it borrows is the look of a transliterated name, and what it costs is a letter that a reader must learn to ignore. The 1999 American peak places Khiara at the start of that fashion, which ran through the 2000s and 2010s and is now one of the most recognizable spelling signatures of the period.
Meaningscholars disagree
Italian "clear, bright, famous"
Chiara is Italian for clear or bright, from Latin clarus, and is a well-documented name through Saint Clare. But Kiara in America may also derive from Irish Ciara, the feminine of Ciar, meaning dark or black — an almost exactly opposite meaning — or from Swahili or a film character. Khiara sits above all of these and the spelling does not choose.
How the name formed
- clarus
- Chiara
- Kiara
- Khiara
Related forms: Chiara · Kiara · Ciara · Claire
Pronouncing Khiara
kee-AR-uh
Three syllables with the stress in the middle. The h is entirely silent. Italian Chiara is two syllables, KYAR-ah, with the first two letters as a single glide — a different rhythm from the American reading.
Nicknames for Khiara
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
- 1989
- Most girls named
- 201924 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #4870reached in 1999
- Change vs 2024
- 0.0%15 in 2025, from 15
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.
Khiara in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Chiara in Italian — same name
- Kiara in English — spelling variant
- Ciara in Irish — related form
- Claire in French — related form
Khiaras among us
people named Khiara are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 107,151 born in 2025 was named Khiara
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Khiara
- #7133
- Khiara on the 2025 chart
- #223
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Khiara went to 15 girls in 2025, but Kiara, Kyara and Kiarah and the rest below are the same name said out loud. Together the 7 spellings went to 1,497, which makes it the 223rd most-given girls’ name of the year — 6,910 places above the chart.
About 1 girl in 1,074 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 107,151 for Khiara 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 Adeana test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Khiara's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Adeana climbed just as high around 1973, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Adeana's path sketches the road Khiara is walking now.
Khiara 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
Khiara beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Khiara in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- The Italian original has a documented saint and a settled meaning.
- Kiki and Ara are both easy short forms.
- The kh spelling is distinctive within a very large family.
- The h does nothing and will be dropped by everyone else.
- The Italian and Irish possible sources have opposite meanings — bright and dark.
- Kiara, Ciara, Chiara, Kiarra and Khiara all coexist.
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What they receive
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Khiara
Feminine · #7133 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Khiaras are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 500 people named Khiara are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Khiara?
- Khiara is one of 7 recorded spellings. Kiara is the more common one — 1,335 births in 2025 against 15 for Khiara.
- How popular is the name Khiara in 2025?
- Khiara ranks #7133 among US girl names in 2025, with 15 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Khiara?
- About 1 in every 107,151 US girls born in 2025 was named Khiara — 15 in all.
- Will my child share the name Khiara with classmates?
- Khiara will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Khiara
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Pennie#7133 · Zina#7133 · Elzie#7133 · Rosabel#7133 · Adelene#7133 · Cruz#7133 · Kansas#7133 · Ione#7133
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Khiara? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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