Cara vs Harper

How Cara and Harper compare across 146 years of US Social Security Administration baby-name records — popularity history, peak years, current rank, and which name overtook which.

Open Name Tournament

US Popularity History — Side-by-Side

Annual US births named Cara (girls) vs Harper (girls), from US Social Security Administration national records.

Source: US Social Security Administration. Names appearing fewer than 5 times per year are suppressed by SSA.

Quick Stats

Metric	Cara	Harper
Peak year (most US births)	2000 — 732 girls	2016 — 10,802 girls
Peak rank	#393	#11
Most recent rank (2020)	#910 (288 births)	#16 (6,792 births)
Total US births since 1880	9,900	137,640
Last 10 years (2011–2020)	3,406	89,927

Peak comparison takeaway

At its all-time peak, Harper reached 10,802 US births in 2016 — 10,070 more than Cara's peak count.

Crossover Years

Years where one name first passed the other in annual US births. A name "winning" in a year means it had more births that year, not necessarily a higher rank.

Year	New leader	Cara births	Harper births
2006	Harper	531	597

Strongest States — Last 10 Years

States where each name ranked highest, from SSA's state-level dataset. Lower average rank = name appears closer to the top of that state's girls-name list.

Cara — top 5 states

#	State	Avg rank	Births
1	Massachusetts	#665	63
2	New Jersey	#693	90
3	Virginia	#697	55
4	Wisconsin	#703	28
5	Alabama	#722	26

Harper — top 5 states

#	State	Avg rank	Births
1	West Virginia	#3	725
2	Montana	#4	392
3	South Dakota	#4	409
4	Wyoming	#4	190
5	Maine	#5	478

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Data & methodology

Source: US Social Security Administration national baby names dataset 1880–2025 (CC0 public domain). Names with fewer than 5 occurrences in a given year are suppressed by SSA. State-level coverage runs 1910–2025. Crossover detection compares annual birth counts (not ranks) for each year both names appear. Methodology: see full notes. More comparisons →