Clara

Popularity, 1880–2025

girls named Clara boys named Clara

By the numbers

Total US births

301,540

Estimated living today

105,000

Median age today

21

Peak year

1918

Best rank

43rd

Rank in 2025

63rd

First recorded

1880

Girls / boys

300,524 / 1,016

How old the living Claras are

born that year still alive today

Of the 301,540 babies given the name since 1880, about 105,000 are alive — 35 in every hundred. Roughly 47,000 of them are children and 31,000 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 2004 and half after.

An estimate, not a count. SSA births aged forward through SSA cohort life tables, which know nothing about who left the country or arrived in it — so for a name that mostly came to America rather than being born in it, this is a floor rather than a figure. Where you fall among living Americans.

Where the name comes from

Origin Latin

Latin clāra, feminine of clārus (“bright, shining, clear”), a post-classical name made famous by the 13th century Saint Clara (Clare) of Assisi.

Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Notable Claras

• Clara Zetkin (1857–1933)Communist activist, and advocate for women's rights
• Clara Schumann (1819–1896)German musician and composer
• Clara Bow (1905–1965)American actress
• Clara Petacci (1912–1945)mistress of the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini
• Clara Barton (1821–1912)American Civil War nurse
• Clara Immerwahr (1870–1915)German chemist
• Isabella Clara Eugenia of Spain (1566–1633)Infanta of Spain, Archduchess of Austria
• Clara Campoamor (1888–1972)Spanish politician, feminist

People named Clara with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).

Where Clara is most common

• TX15,316
• NY13,537
• PA13,137
• OH11,032
• NC10,729
• CA10,477
• IL9,510
• GA9,241
• AL8,427
• TN7,746

Relative to how many babies each state records, Clara is most concentrated in Mississippi (2.3×), Alabama (2.0×), North Dakota (2.0×), Arkansas (1.8×).

Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.

Names of 1918

The most popular girls’ names the year Clara peaked:

• Mary
• Helen
• Dorothy
• Margaret
• Ruth
• Mildred

All the names of 1918

Clara elsewhere

Counts come from each country's own records and are not comparable with the US figures above, which cover different years and a different definition of a recorded name. Where a country writes the name several ways, the spellings are added together and the most common is shown. A row marked name registrations is counting something else: Portugal ranks each of a child's two given names separately, so a girl registered Maria Leonor is in both the Maria row and the Leonor row, and that figure is not a number of children.

Clara: births by region

Parts of a country counted above, not extra births. The share is what makes the regions comparable: they differ in size by a factor of three hundred.

By canton, Clara is most concentrated in Geneva, where 0.44% of children were given it – 450 of them.

Clara: rank by region

In 2025, Clara was given 5 times or more in 3 regions of Belgium.

In 2019, Clara was among the 10 most common names in 1 region of Italy.

In 2025, Clara was given 2 times or more in 6 regions of Poland.

In 2025, with the country taken in 11 areas rather than 3, Clara appears in the lists for Province of West Flanders (18th), Province of Luxembourg (35th), Brussels-Capital Region (37th), Province of Flemish Brabant (37th), Province of Walloon Brabant (42nd), Province of Liège (46th), Province of Antwerp (85th), Province of Hainaut (102nd), Province of East Flanders (123rd) and Province of Limburg (138th).

Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children, Italy after 10 names, Poland below 2 children – and published nothing after. So a region missing here is one where the name fell outside what was published, not one where it went unused. Places are shared where names tie, and the further down a list a place is, the more names can share it.

Clara by city

One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.

Clara among the living

How many people each country's register counts under the name, rather than how many were given it in any one year. Each register was read on one date, and they are not the same date.

A count of people on a register – the Netherlands on 1 January 2018, Finland on 4 August 2026 – and not of births, so it cannot be compared with the figures above. Names with very few bearers are withheld, and a dash in the first-forename column means the register would not say rather than that nobody goes by it.

Where Clara lives in Spain

Not a count of births but of people: 50,093 women called Clara were living in Spain on 1 January 2025, of every age, born in any year. Where they live is not spread evenly.

Women: the provinces where it is densest

Listed in 52 of Spain's 52 provinces. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.

Related names

• Clarence
• Claire
• Clayton
• Claudia
• Claude
• Clark
• Clay
• Clarissa
• Clare
• Clarice
• Claudette
• Clair

Clara against another name

Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.

• Clara vs Clarence
• Clara vs Claire
• Clara vs Clayton
• Clara vs Claudia
• Clara vs Claude
• Clara vs Clark

Compare Clara with a name of your own