The first name Claire is the French version of the name Clara and can be traced back to the Latin ‘clara’ or ‘clarus’. The name means something like ‘the shining’ or ‘the clear’. A possible interpretation is also ‘the famous’.
Claire is a first name typically given to girls, but in rare cases also used as a boys name.
The first name Claire is one of the top 100 most popular girls names in the US – currently at #45 in our SmartGenius ranking. Over 1,000 babies each year are named Claire, accounting for approximately 0.30 % of all newborn girls. In the entire USA, approximately 194,588 people – children, adults and seniors – currently bear the name Claire. That is 0.06 % of all living Americans.
The first name Claire is the French version of the name Clara and can be traced back to the Latin ‘clara’ or ‘clarus’. The name means something like ‘the shining’ or ‘the clear’. A possible interpretation is also ‘the famous’.
Claire Danes (*1979)
The American Actress Claire Danes early caught attention for her acting talent as Angela Chase in the teen drama series "My So-Called Life" (1994). She gained mainstream fame for her performance as Juliet in the modernized adaption of "William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet" (1996). She since appeared in numerous TV, cinema and Broadway productions such as "The Rainmaker" (1997) or "Stardust" (2007). Danes received three Primetime Emmy Awards and four Golden Globe Awards. The "Time" Magazine listed her as one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2012.
Grimes (*1988)
The Canadian musician and record producer Claire Elise Boucher is commonly known as "Grimes". She achieved prominence in 2012 by publishing her third studio album "Visions" and came up trumps in 2015 with her fourth album "Art Angels", which received even better critical reviews. Her style is hard to define but is mostly described with a number of labels such as synth-pop, electropop or dream pop. She also hit the headlines for her relationship to Elon Musk with whom she has a child, who bears the quirky name "X Æ A-Xii.
Claire Foy (*1984)
The most famous role of British Actress Claire Elizabeth Foy is probably the one of young Queen Elizabeth II in the first two seasons of the Netflix series "The Crown" (2016–2017) – it even earned her a Primetime Emmy Award. She made her acting debut at the Royal National Theatre in London and soon starred in the miniseries "Little Dorrit" (2008). She since appeared in a wide range of genres and productions.
Claire McCaskill (*1953)
Claire Conner McCaskill is an American politician who served as a United States Senator for Missouri from 2007 to 2019 and as State Auditor of Missouri from 1999 to 2007. McCaskill was a member of the Democratic Party and was known for her moderate views and willingness to work across the aisle.
When you hear the name Claire, you might first think of a woman or a girl. But did you know that there are also places with the name Claire? Are you also called Claire? Maybe one day you will visit the places that are named just like you...
there is a neighborhood with the name Lake Claire. The name is a shorthand for the intersection of Lakeshore and Claire Drives and does not derive from a real lake.
approximately 4,700 is found in the city of Le Claire in Scott County, Iowa. It borders the bank of the Mississippi River.
close to the border of North Dakota there is small town named Claire City. Its population is about 82.
in the U.S. are called Eau Claire. You can find them in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. "Eau Claire" is French and means "clear water.
on the island of Montreal is called the Pointe-Claire Windmill. It is located in Pointe-Claire, Quebec, Canada and one of 18 remaining windmills in the province.
If we dig really deep into our statistics, we find that there are very few girls' names that have been consistently popular for so long that they have been given to newborns in every single year since the beginning of our records in 1880. In fact, there are only 432 girls' names that appear in our statistics in every single year, and Claire is one of those very special classics. At the same time, Claire has never been more popular than it is in this century - in 2016, the name even made it to rank #39 of the most popular girls' names, easily landing in the top 100 of our SmartGenius first name statistics.
In years where the graph has no value, the name Claire was given less than five times or even none at all in the entire USA.
...because: In 2022, 3,365 girls were born and given the name Claire by their parents. That puts Claire at #64 on our list of most popular girls' names. It was much less popular in 1972 - only 274 parents chose this name for their newborn daughter and it ranked 563 on the popularity scale of all girls' names.
There are only 537 different women’s names registered in every single state in the U.S., and Claire is one of them. However, Claire is not equally widespread in all states, but people in Rhode Island seem to particularly fancy this name – the 2,509 women called Claire who live here are 0,449% of all female residents and push their name up to #55, easily placing it in the top 100 most common female names in Rhode Island.
Well, you might say, you probably figured that out yourself! But what you might not know is: The letter C is a frequent initial letter for girls' names. This is because 6.0% of all common girls’ names in the US begin with this letter. The most common first letters of girls' names, by the way, are A, S and M.
With six letters, the name Claire is of average length. In fact, 28% of all common first names in the US consist of exactly six letters. 24% of all first names are shorter, while 48% have seven letters or more. On average, first names in the US (not counting hyphenated names) are 6.5 letters long. There are no significant differences between boys' and girls' names.
That means that with 6.0% of all girls' names that begin with a C, this first letter is much more common than the average of all letters. And which girls’ name beginning with C do you think is the most common in the US? The answer is... Carol.
If your name is Claire and someone asks after your name, you can of course just tell them what it is. But sometimes that isn't so easy - what if it's too loud, and you don't understand them well? Or what if the other person is so far away that you can see them but not hear them? In these situations, you can communicate your name in so many other ways: you call spell it, sign it, or even use a flag to wave it...
So that everyone really understands you when you have to spell the name Claire, you can simply say:
Cat
Lion
Apple
Igloo
Rocket
Elephant
Braille is made up of dots, which the blind and visually impaired can feel to read words.
Claire
Claire
Just use American Sign Language!
These flags are used for maritime communication - each flag represents a letter.
C
L
A
I
R
E
In the navy, sailors of two ships might wave flags to each other to send messages. A sailor holds two flags in specific positions to represent different letters.
C
L
A
I
R
E
In Morse code, letters and other characters are represented only by a series of short and long tones. For example, a short tone followed by a long tone stands for the letter A. Claire sounds like this:
