Cara

Spellings & scripts●

Locally spelled Kara in TR Türkiye, DE Germany, BE Belgium and 9 more.

Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records; ○ marks a model's transliteration. Click a spelling to open its page.

Meaning & origin●

Attested across 18 languages in the etymology graph.

Languages●

Language is read off each record's context, not declared by the bearer; a share is of all records for this spelling.

Other names spelled this way◐

Cara is also recorded as 4 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

• Spanish given name58K records spelled Cara33 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in United States, India, Brazil, Philippines

  Languages: Spanish, Portuguese, Italian

  Also written Carà, Cará, Cara', Cãrä, Çarã

• a separate given name28K records spelled Cara6 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Italy

  Also written Carà, Câra, Çara, Cará, Čára

• French given name12K records spelled Cara16 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in France, United States, United Kingdom, Canada

  Also written Carä, Carā, Carà, Cặřặ, Cará

• Indonesian given name9.8K records spelled Cara7 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in India, United States, Indonesia, Philippines

  Languages: Indonesian, Malay, Malagasy

  Also written Çärâ, Carã, Ćãrã, Cärã

63 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses●

Cara is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

• 20th-century coinage, from the Italian term of endearment cara ‘beloved’ or the Irish Gaelic vocabulary word cara ‘friend’.

  as a name·A concise dictionary of first names

• In pi, A Yakkha chieftain to be invoked by followers of the Buddha in times of need.’ D . iii. 205; the P.T.S. edition calls him Māṇicara as does the P.T.S. edition of the commentary (D. iff. 970); but the Sinhalese edition, both text and com¬ mentary, divides this name into two thus : Maṇi and Cara.

  as a name·Dictionary of Pali Proper Names Vol I (A-Dh)

• In English, A female given name originating as a coinage.

  as a word·kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

• In Italian, do lat. cara, querida; fem. de Caro

  as a name·Dicionário dos sobrenomes italianos

• In French, Du latin cara, « chère, aimée ».

  as a name·Dictionnaire généalogique des prénoms

Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.

Over time●

US SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) — 143 years between 1882–2025. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.

Notable people with this name●

• Cara Williamsb. 1925USAmerican actress (1925–2021)
• Carly Fiorinab. 1954USnot in their usual nameAmerican businesswoman and politician
• Cara Seymourb. 1964GBBritish actress
• Cara Buonob. 1971USAmerican actress, screenwriter, and director
• Cara Pifkob. 1976CACanadian actress
• Cara Blackb. 1979ZWZimbabwean tennis player
• Cara Horganb. 1984GBBritish actress
• Cara Cunninghamb. 1987USAmerican Internet personality, songwriter, and recording artist
• Cara Theoboldb. 1990GBBritish actress
• Cara Delevingneb. 1992GBEnglish model and actor (born 1992)

The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).

Evidence●

Register rows as of the 2026-09-12 data build · 636 rows in the corpus for this spelling.

Frequently asked questions

How common is the name Cara?

We estimate roughly 95 thousand people bear Cara (counting its spellings and scripts) across 9 countries in our records.

In which country does Cara have the most bearers?

We estimate about 93 thousand people bear Cara in the United States, more than in any other country in our records, where it is most often spelled cara.

Where is Cara most common?

Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Cara is densest in Iceland — about 1 in 1.1 thousand people — even though United States holds more of our records for it.

How common is Cara compared with other names?

In the United States, Cara is the 773rd most common given name of 3,122,706 given names recorded there.

Is Cara a male or female name?

Cara is a female name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.

What does the name Cara mean?

Recorded meaning: A successor of Mahā Sammata and a member of the Sākya tribe; father of Upacara (Mhv.ff.2; Dpv.i.5; DA.i.258; SnA.i.352).