Lara
- Pronunciation
- [La-ra]
- Gender
- Female
- Meaning
- Protection. Popular Surname And Place Name.
- Origin
- Spanish
About the Name Lara
Lara is a graceful name with several intertwined roots. It serves as a Russian short form of Larissa, appears as a Spanish surname and place name, and is sometimes linked to ideas of protection. Its clean, two-syllable shape and bright open vowels give it an international elegance that travels easily across languages, feeling equally at home in Spanish, Russian, German, and English alike.
That cross-cultural quality is central to its appeal: Lara is simple to spell and pronounce in many tongues while retaining a quiet, literary sophistication and a hint of aristocratic glamour. The name pairs a minimalist, thoroughly modern look with a long history of poetic and dramatic use, making it feel both fashionable and timeless at once.
As a girls' name in the United States, Lara first entered the Social Security top-1000 in 2000 and reached its peak in 2002 at rank #635, with roughly 8,600 girls given the name across its top-1000 years. Notably, it remained in the rankings as recently as 2024 at #740, making Lara a durable, elegant choice that has quietly held its place for more than two decades. Its rare combination of brevity, beauty, and international reach gives the name a timeless polish that resists the swings of fashion, equally graceful whether read in Madrid, Moscow, or New York.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Lara
US Popularity History (2000–2025)
Annual US births named Lara by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2021 with 426 girls named Lara (girl rank #682 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #693 for girls (409 US births). That's 11 places below its 2021 peak.
Source: US Social Security Administration. Limitations: US birth-certificate data only; names appearing fewer than 5 times in a given year are suppressed for privacy; spelling variants are counted separately. For names that ranked outside the US top 100 before year 2000, only the years they reached the top 100 are shown — the chart may have gaps for less-popular historical names.
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Where in the US Is Lara Most Popular?
Average girl-name rank within each state across 2016–2025 SSA records. A lower number means the name appears closer to the top of that state's girls-name rankings — a per-capita measure that isn't biased toward large states. For Lara the strongest states are Massachusetts, Florida, New Jersey.
Strongest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Massachusetts | #297 | 183 |
| 2 | Florida | #361 | 474 |
| 3 | New Jersey | #397 | 195 |
| 4 | Connecticut | #463 | 55 |
| 5 | New York | #487 | 336 |
| 6 | Virginia | #610 | 105 |
| 7 | California | #663 | 470 |
| 8 | Illinois | #664 | 153 |
| 9 | Michigan | #679 | 115 |
| 10 | Washington | #739 | 59 |
Weakest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ohio | #943 | 65 |
| 2 | North Carolina | #929 | 58 |
| 3 | Colorado | #877 | 23 |
| 4 | Texas | #868 | 311 |
| 5 | Arizona | #847 | 31 |
| 6 | Georgia | #816 | 85 |
| 7 | Wisconsin | #798 | 18 |
| 8 | Pennsylvania | #779 | 102 |
| 9 | Minnesota | #778 | 33 |
| 10 | Maryland | #771 | 42 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Lara in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Looking for names like Lara?
A dedicated page with 60+ related names — spelling variants, rhymes, alliterations, same-origin matches, and shared meaning concepts — lives at its own URL so each kind of similarity gets a deeper treatment than fits here.
Compare Lara to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Lara against today's most popular girls-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).
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