Cara: Meaning of Baby Name Cara

About the Name Cara

Cara draws on one of the most direct and affecting words in the Celtic and Italic traditions. In Irish Gaelic, cara simply means "friend" — a word still used in everyday Irish speech today. The same root surfaces in Latin carus, "dear" or "beloved," giving the name a dual heritage that spans Atlantic Celtic culture and the classical Mediterranean world. As a standalone given name in the English-speaking world, Cara is valued precisely for its brevity and its transparent warmth: it requires no translation for most listeners yet carries genuine linguistic depth. That combination of simplicity and sincerity has made it a perennial quiet favorite in Irish, Italian, and English-speaking households alike.

The name entered the US Social Security top-1000 in 2000 at its peak rank of #393, reflecting steady crossover appeal from Irish-American communities to the broader population. Through the 2000s and 2010s it held a quiet but consistent presence, reaching #910 in 2020 — the last year it appeared in the top-1000 — with 288 girls receiving the name that year. More than 9,900 girls were named Cara across its two decades in the SSA rankings. Its exit from the top-1000 does not signal rarity so much as a gentle retreat to cherished underdog status, which many parents now find more appealing than mainstream dominance. The name’s compact two-syllable structure and its universally positive meaning ensure that it remains immediately legible across cultures while feeling warm and personal. Variants include Carrie, Kara, and Karina.

Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.

Quick Facts About Cara

569

Celtic baby names in our dictionary

205

Celtic female names

75

4-letter C-names in our dictionary

721

C-female names total

2000–2020

years of US SSA records (20 total)

9,900

total US births named Cara (all years)

US Popularity History (2000–2020)

📉 Falling fast: Cara dropped 180 places in the US girls ranking over the last 5 years (#730 in 2015 → #910 in 2020).

Annual US births named Cara by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2000 with 732 girls named Cara (girl rank #393 that year).

Where it stands today: in 2020, ranked #910 for girls (288 US births). That's 517 places below its 2000 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.

Where in the US Is Cara 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 Cara the strongest states are Massachusetts, New Jersey, Virginia.

Strongest girls-name 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
6	North Carolina	#741	75
7	Missouri	#767	28
8	New York	#769	192
9	Pennsylvania	#784	104
10	Ohio	#792	80

Weakest girls-name states

#	State	Avg rank	Births
1	Georgia	#1,104	34
2	Tennessee	#952	19
3	Michigan	#892	43
4	Illinois	#880	45
5	California	#866	267
6	Colorado	#828	29
7	Washington	#826	39
8	Maryland	#816	36
9	Ohio	#792	80
10	Pennsylvania	#784	104

Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Cara in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.

Variant Forms

Name	Meaning	Gender	Origin
Carrie	Abbreviation Of Carol And Caroline From The Masculine Charles Meaning Manly	Female	English
Kara	Variant Of Katherine. Pure.	Female	English
Karina	Form Of Karen; Pure KIRA, KIROCHKA	Female	Russian

Looking for names like Cara?

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.

See all names like Cara →

Compare Cara to Other Popular Names

Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Cara against today's most popular girls-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).

Cara vs Olivia 210,124 births since 2014

Cara vs Emma 202,477 births since 2014

Cara vs Sophia 169,709 births since 2014

Cara vs Isabella 158,431 births since 2014

Cara vs Ava 157,356 births since 2014

Cara vs Charlotte 151,872 births since 2014

Cara vs Mia 149,779 births since 2014

Cara vs Amelia 142,728 births since 2014

Compare to a different name →