The first name Clara stands for ‘the shining one’ or ‘the famous one’. The meaning is derived from the Latin word ‘clārus’, which can be translated as ‘bright, shining, clear, distinct, famous’.
Clara is a first name typically given to girls, but in rare cases also used as a boys name.
The name Clara isn’t among the current fashionable names in our top 10 stats, but nonetheless, it’s still very popular and common. In our SmartGenius ranking of all girls names, Clara ranks 102. Recently, out of every 10,000 newborn girls, approximately 18 were named Clara. In the entire USA, approximately 220,579 people – children, adults and seniors – currently bear the name Clara. That is 0.07 % of all living Americans.
The first name Clara stands for ‘the shining one’ or ‘the famous one’. The meaning is derived from the Latin word ‘clārus’, which can be translated as ‘bright, shining, clear, distinct, famous’.
Clara was the name of... a rhinoceros that became famous in the mid-1800s. It was the fifth living sepcimen to be seen in Europe since the Middle Ages ended around 1500.
Clarissa Harlowe Barton (1821-1912)
Known as »Clara Barton«, the US nurse, teacher and philanthropist founded the American Red Cross and had a major influence on the self-image of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. In 1973, she was admitted to the National Women's Hall of Fame.
Clara Gordon Bow (1905-1965)
The US-american actress became famous in the late silent film era. She is considered a sex symbol of the 1920s and »the first It girl« thanks to her role in the comedy »It«.
Clara Josephine Schumann (1819-1896)
Schumann was a German pianist, composer, piano teacher and editor who began her career as a child prodigy and is now considered to be among the most distinguished pianists of the Romantic era. She was the wife of composer and pianist Robert Schumann from 1840 until his death in 1856.
Clara Rilke (1878-1954)
Born Clara Henriette Sophie Westhoff, hence also known as »Clara Westhoff« or »Clara Rilke-Westhoff«, was a German sculptor and painter who made a name for herself with her versatile artistic works, including portrait busts and paintings. She made a significant contribution to the art scene of her time and was the wife of poet Rainer Maria Rilke.
When you hear the name Clara, you might first think of a woman or a girl. But did you know that there are also places with the name Clara? Are you also called Clara? Maybe one day you will visit the places that are named just like you...
is a minor planet orbiting the Sun.
There is a townland and small clachan called »Clara« in County Wicklow in Ireland. It is often referred to as »the smallest village in Ireland«.
is the name of a city that is situated in the »county of Clara« in California, USA.
In Chippewa County, Minnesota, United States you wil find a city named »Clara City«.
The commune »Clara-Villerach« is located in the Pyrénées-Orientales department of southern France.
Clara is a very special girls' name - although the peak of its popularity dates back more than 100 years, it belongs to the exclusive circle of only 432 girls names that haven been given in each of the 143 years for which official name statistics in the USA are available. The most popular was Clara in 1885 - ranking #7 it even made it into the top 10 of the most popular girls names in our SmartGenius first name statistics.
In years where the graph has no value, the name Clara was given less than five times or even none at all in the entire USA.
2,541 young parents chose the name Clara for their newborn child in 2022, placing it at number 109 in our ranking of the most popular girls names - in other words, 108 names were given more frequently to girls in 2022. However, the rarest use of the name was in 1978 with only 287 babies given that name, which puts it at rank 574 in our SmartGenius first name statistics.
There are only 537 different women’s names registered in every single state in the U.S., and Clara is one of them. However, Clara is not equally widespread in all states, but people in Mississippi seem to particularly fancy this name – the 6,844 women called Clara who live here are 0,356% of all female residents and push their name up to #58, easily placing it in the top 100 most common female names in Mississippi.
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 five letters, the name Clara is comparatively short. In fact, 17.0% of all common first names in the US consist of exactly five letters. Only 7% of all first names are even shorter, while 75% have more than five letters. 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 Clara 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 Clara, you can simply say:
Cat
Lion
Apple
Rocket
Apple
Braille is made up of dots, which the blind and visually impaired can feel to read words.
Clara
Clara
Just use American Sign Language!
These flags are used for maritime communication - each flag represents a letter.
C
L
A
R
A
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
R
A
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. Clara sounds like this:
