Clare
Meaning
“'clear, bright, famous', from Latin clarus”
Name day: August 11 in the Roman calendar of saints (Saint Clare of Assisi).
The story
Clare is the Latin clarus, clear and bright, and the name's great bearer chose her path at eighteen: Clare of Assisi slipped away from her family's house on a March night in 1212 to join Francis, gave up everything, and founded the order the world calls the Poor Clares. Seven centuries later the Church handed her a patronage nobody could have predicted: in 1958 Pius XII declared her the patron saint of television, because near the end of her life she was said to have seen and heard, from her sickbed, a Christmas mass celebrated far across Assisi. In US records Clare has kept the steadiest of profiles, present in every decade, never crowding the top, with a gentle rise since the 2000s as parents rediscover the spelling without the i. It is the quietest kind of name: one syllable, one meaning, bright and clear, exactly as advertised.
Clare's name family
One shared root links 6 names across 2 languages.
Shared root: from Latin clarus "clear, bright, famous", sainted by Clare of Assisi
The constellation
More branches
Popularity, 1890–2024
Shape drawn from US Social Security baby-name records. Clare peaked in the 2000s and the 2020s in nearly equal measure.
See popularity in Brazil
Popularity in Brazil
112 people · the #38,089 first name in Brazil · about 1 in 1,000,000 · median age 42
Among people named Clare living in Brazil at the 2022 census, more were born in the 1960s than in any other decade.
Source: IBGE, Censo Demográfico 2022
When you meet Clare
Most people given the name Clare in the United States were born between 1960 and 2019. The Clare you meet today is most often in her 20s or 30s.
Estimated from US Social Security birth registrations and typical lifespans; a rough guide, not a rule.
The Clare deep dive
Whether you’re naming a baby or exploring your own name’s history, this is a personal letter, not a list: where Clare truly comes from, how it traveled, and what a century of records reveals. If you have grown a tree on nametree, it also considers how Clare fits with your family’s names and surname.
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