Carla
- Pronunciation
- [Car-la]
- Gender
- Female
- Meaning
- Manly
- Origin
- Romanian
About the Name Carla
Carla is a feminine form of Carlo or Charles, which derives from the Old High German Karl, meaning "man" or "free man" — a root associated with strength, independence, and full personhood in the Germanic tradition. The feminine Carla form is widely used in Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and other Romance languages, giving it a warm Mediterranean quality that has made it appealing well beyond its Germanic origin. Its two-syllable structure and open final vowel give it a fluid, melodious character.
A notable bearer is Carla Bruni (born 1967), the Italian-French former model, singer-songwriter, and former First Lady of France whose three-decade career established her as one of the leading international supermodels of the 1990s and 2000s.
Carla first entered the US Social Security top-1000 in 1961 and peaked in 1965 at rank #76, reaching its high point during the mid-1960s vogue for Romance-language feminine names. It has shown remarkable staying power, remaining on the charts through 2023, most recently recorded at rank #967 with 267 births — one of the longer continuous presences among names of its generation. Total top-1000 births exceed 57,000 across its tracked span. Recorded variants include Carleen, Carli, Carlin, Carly, and Carlyle.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Carla
US Popularity History (1961–2023)
Annual US births named Carla by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 1962 with 5,821 girls named Carla (girl rank #78 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2023, ranked #967 for girls (267 US births). That's 889 places below its 1962 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 Carla 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 Carla the strongest states are Connecticut, Massachusetts, Arizona.
Strongest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Connecticut | #494 | 29 |
| 2 | Massachusetts | #554 | 28 |
| 3 | Arizona | #656 | 70 |
| 4 | Florida | #685 | 218 |
| 5 | Colorado | #688 | 38 |
| 6 | California | #725 | 429 |
| 7 | Alabama | #740 | 25 |
| 8 | Maryland | #763 | 34 |
| 9 | New Jersey | #768 | 78 |
| 10 | Texas | #783 | 358 |
Weakest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Georgia | #1,064 | 35 |
| 2 | Illinois | #1,036 | 26 |
| 3 | Michigan | #1,014 | 28 |
| 4 | North Carolina | #915 | 38 |
| 5 | Indiana | #871 | 20 |
| 6 | New York | #852 | 131 |
| 7 | Texas | #783 | 358 |
| 8 | New Jersey | #768 | 78 |
| 9 | Maryland | #763 | 34 |
| 10 | Alabama | #740 | 25 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Carla in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Variant Forms
Famous People Named Carla
1 notable figure from history and culture who share the name Carla.
- Carla Bruni — Model (1967)
Looking for names like Carla?
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 Carla to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Carla 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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