Clara

girls:

293.8k births since 1880

#129 (98th percentile)

boys:

1k births since 1880

#3577 (22nd percentile)

overall:

294.8k births since 1880

#260 (97th percentile)

Popularity Trends

The name Clara is the #260 most popular name of all time in the U.S. on a gender-neutral basis, with a total of 294,814 recorded births since 1880. This represents the 96.7% percentile of name popularity (more popular than 96.7% of all names). For girls, it ranks #129 (97.8% percentile) for all time with 293,798 births since 1880. For boys, it ranks #3,577 (22.0% percentile) for all time with 1,016 births since 1880.

Clara has appeared in U.S. birth records since the beginning of our dataset in 1880

The name Clara has been given almost exclusively to girls, with 99.7% of all recorded births being female.

For girls, Clara reached its peak popularity in 1885, achieving the 97.6% percentile (ranked #7) with 13,456 births per million. The name was most common in 1884, with 13,461 births per million (ranked 97.0% percentile). Since reaching a high point in 2019, the popularity of this name for girls has been declining. Currently, Clara ranks #96 for girls (90.0% percentile) with 1,514 births per million, which is 11.2% of its peak share of births.

For boys, Clara reached its peak popularity in 1930, achieving the 5.2% percentile (ranked #498) with 28 births per million. The name was most common in 1901, with 138 births per million (ranked 5.0% percentile). There have been no recorded male births with this name since 2019.

This chart shows the total number of births per million babies in each year for the name "Clara".

1880 2023 18802023

Key Statistics

Total Births
293,798
Peak Births
5,778
Peak Year
1885
First Recorded
1880
Peak Percentile
97.6%
Current Percentile
90.0%
Peak Rank
#7
Current Rank
#96
Female statistics
Total Births
1,016
Peak Births
32
Peak Year
1930
First Recorded
1880
Peak Percentile
5.2%
Current Percentile
Peak Rank
#498
Current Rank
Male statistics

How to Pronounce Clara

Our model has identified 3 different pronunciations for the name Clara. Click the play button under each pronunciation to hear it spoken aloud.

Our model is 51.9% confident that Clara is pronounced as KLEH-ruh, which has 2 syllables. The next most likely pronunciation is KLAH-ruh, at 37.7% confidence, with 2 syllables.

2
51.9%
2
37.7%
2
10.4%
KLEH-ruh (2 syllables)
Verified
51.9% confidence
K L EH1 R AH0
KLAH-ruh (2 syllables)
37.7% confidence
K L AA1 R AH0
KLA-ruh (2 syllables)
Verified
10.4% confidence
K L AE1 R AH0

Possible Additional Pronunciations

If none of the pronunciations above sound right to you, could you please check whether any of these related pronunciations should be applied to the name Clara? These are pronunciations that other similar names use, but which are not currently associated with Clara. If you think any of these are valid pronunciations for Clara, please vote using the thumbs up button.

About Pronunciation Data

Our confidence scores estimate the likelihood that a particular pronunciation is the most correct for a given name spelling. These scores are derived from pronunciation dictionaries, manual verification, your feedback, and a fine-tuned large language model trained to generate name pronunciations.

For any given spelling, confidence scores across all identified pronunciations sum to 100%. However, these scores don't account for the possibility of valid pronunciations that our model hasn't identified.

The raw pronunciations shown (like K L EH1 R AH0) use the ARPAbet phoneme system, a standardized way to represent English speech sounds. Each symbol represents a distinct sound in American English. Visit the ARPAbet Wikipedia page to learn more about these phonetic symbols.

Pronunciation audio is generated by an open source text to speech model that has been customized to adhere to pronunciations provided in ARPAbet format, but sometimes pronunciations that differ subtly will sound identical, particularly if the only difference is the level of emphasis on a syllable or a single vowel sound.

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