Clara
Meaning of Clara
Clara is the Latinate off-shoot of the adjective clarus, “bright, clear, illustrious,” introduced to the English-speaking world through the medieval Saint Chiara of Assisi and subsequently polished by Victorian classicists. In American vital-statistics the trajectory is almost textbook: a Top-50 staple through the Roaring Twenties, a gradual slide to rank 490 in the disco era, and a steady rebound that now places the name back inside the contemporary Top 100 (≈3,060 newborns in 2024). Cultural references keep the signal strong yet understated—romantic-era pianist Clara Schumann for the musicologists, the ballet heroine of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker for holiday traditionalists, and Clara Oswald from Doctor Who for the pop-culture literate. Phonetically economical—three crisp syllables in Romance languages, two in standard English—and resistant to creative misspelling, Clara offers parents a high-visibility, low-maintenance option whose very meaning promises a lifetime of clarity.
Pronunciation
Italian
- Pronunced as KLAH-rah (/'kla.ra/)
Spanish
- Pronunced as KLAH-rah (/'kla.ɾa/)
English
- Pronunced as KLAR-uh (/'klɛrə/)
U.S. Popularity Chart
States Popularity Chart
Notable People Named Clara
| Clara Bow was an American actress who became the It Girl of the Roaring Twenties, rising from silent film stardom to sound in 1929. |
| Clara Schumann was a German pianist, composer, and teacher who, over a 61 year career, became a leading Romantic figure, reshaped piano recitals, and wrote solo, concerto, chamber, choral, and song works. |
| Clara Barton - Clarissa Harlowe Barton, a self-taught Civil War nurse and humanitarian, founded the American Red Cross and was later inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame. |
| Clara Tauson is a Danish professional tennis player who reached career highs of world No. 12 in singles and No. 83 in doubles in 2025 and has won three WTA Tour titles on hard courts. |
| Clara Ponsatí - Clara Ponsati i Obiols is a Catalan economist and politician who served as Catalonia's education minister in 2017 before dismissal under Article 155 over the independence referendum, went into exile in Brussels, later taught at the University of St Andrews, and was an MEP from 2020 to 2024. |
| Clara Alonso is an Argentine actress, singer, and TV host who debuted in the 2007 Argentine remake of High School Musical and gained global fame as Angie Carrara in Disney Channel Latin Americas Violetta. |
| Clara Hughes is a Canadian cyclist and speed skater who won two bronze at the 1996 Summer Olympics and four medals across three Winter Olympics. |
| Clara Zetkin was a German Marxist and communist activist who championed women's rights. |
| Clara Luper was a pioneering Oklahoma City teacher and civil rights leader who led the 1958 sit ins that desegregated lunch counters, spearheaded more protests through 1964, and later ran for the United States Senate. |
| Clara Driscoll was a Texas-born philanthropist famed for saving the Alamo through her preservation efforts. |
| Clara Lemlich Shavelson led New York's 1909 Uprising of 20,000, was blacklisted for union activism, later joined the Communist Party and became a consumer activist, and in old age organized her nursing home staff. |
| Clara McBride Hale, known as Mother Hale, was an American humanitarian who founded Hale House Center, a haven for disadvantaged children and babies born dependent on drugs. |
| Clara Langhorne Clemens Samossoud was an American concert singer and the only surviving child of Mark Twain who managed his legacy, wrote biographies of her father and Ossip Gabrilowitsch, later married Jacques Samossoud, and became a Christian Scientist. |
| Clara Susanna Henry is a Swedish actress, comedian, blogger, TV presenter, and author with about 372,000 YouTube subscribers, host of a Kanal 5 talk show, and a two-time backstage reporter at SVT’s Melodifestivalen. |
| Clara Bewick Colby - Clara Dorothy Bewick Colby was a British American suffrage leader, lecturer, and newspaper publisher who founded The Womans Tribune and became the first woman officially appointed a war correspondent during the Spanish American War. |
