Clara

109,248 people in America carry this name — ranked #519 of 923.

A name being given more often than it was a generation ago.

Say it KLA ruh

2 syllables · the capitals are the stressed part

Phonetic transcription

K L AE1 R AH0 — ARPAbet, as published in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. The digit on a vowel marks its stress.

  • People counted 109,248 2020 Census
  • Rank #519 Common
  • Per 100,000 36.2 about 1 in 3,034 people
  • As a surname 1,445 ranked #18,832 the other way round

Where Clara comes from and what it means

Latin in origin, reading literally as “famous”.

Origins are a matter of scholarly argument rather than record, and a name can be traced more than one way. We state one reading and say where it came from.

Clara through the years

286,832 babies were given this name since 1880. The busiest year was 1918, with 5,800 of them.

80 90 00 10 20s 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 00 10 20

Most people carrying it were born in the 1920s. It has been given more often of late.

Counted from Social Security card applications, so it covers births registered in the United States and leaves out names given to fewer than five babies in a year.

Middle names for Clara

Two syllables sit with almost anything — the join matters more than the length.

Better avoided

  • Clara Ashley — runs together
  • Clara Amanda — runs together
  • Clara Amy — runs together

Chosen by sound from the pronouncing dictionary, then ordered by how often the name is given. None of it is a rule — the ear decides.

On the way up

Clara is given more often now than it was a generation ago. Most names move the other way.

Is Clara used for boys or for girls?

0.1% men
109,086 women

As recorded on census returns, not as anyone thinks the name ought to be used.

Names with the same rhythm as Clara

Ends on the same sound

Same rhythm — 2 syllables, stress on the first

Matched on phonemes, not spelling, so the lists follow the ear rather than the page.

Who answers to it now

  • White alone (non-Hispanic) — 59.0%
  • Black or African American alone (non-Hispanic) — 10.9%
  • Hispanic or Latino origin — 23.3%
  • Two or more races — 2.9%
  • Asian and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone — 3.2%
  • American Indian and Alaska Native alone — 0.7%

Categories are how people answered the census — a fact about the bearers, not a property of the name. Conclusions are ours, not the Census Bureau’s.

The same name abroad

  • Lara Finn
  • Klara Slav
  • Clare English
  • Clair French
  • Sklear Breton
  • Clarus
  • Claire French
  • Chiara Italian
  • Skleara Breton
  • Clarina English

Forms of one name traced to the same root. Spellings are as the glossary printed them, so some look older than the versions in use today.

How Clara is spelled

Clara is how 37% of them spell it — 298,960 people answer to the sound.

Each spelling is its own census entry — the counts never overlap, so the shares are of the group, not of the country.

Names about as common

The nearest entries above and below by number of people.

Try it Adult Height

Open Adult Height on its own page

Where this page gets its numbers

  • Counts, ranks and shares: U.S. Census Bureau, 2020 Census tabulations of first and last names occurring 100 or more times. Percentages, bands and groupings are our own arithmetic — the conclusions are ours, not the Bureau’s.
  • Pronunciation, syllables and rhyme groups: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, Carnegie Mellon University. The plain-English respelling is ours.
  • Origins and the forms a name takes in other languages: Charlotte Yonge, History of Christian Names, 1884 — a public-domain work. Scholarship has moved on since, so read it as one reading of a name, not the last word.

Below a hundred people we publish no figure at all — the same threshold the Census Bureau applies to us. What each source covers
Other names of Latin origin