Cara - Name Meaning and Popularity -

Meaning of Cara

Cara slips easily off the tongue—KAIR-uh—and carries a passport stamped in both Italian and Gaelic: in Italian, cara means “beloved,” while in Irish it translates to “friend.” The dual heritage lends the name a tidy blend of warmth and sociability without tipping into sentimentality. In the United States, Cara first tiptoed onto the charts in the late 19th century, crested near the mid-1970s, and has since maintained a comfortable mid-list position, most recently hovering around the 700s—a statistical sweet spot for parents who favor familiarity over ubiquity. Literary types may think of the noble Cara in operatic works, fashion followers of model Cara Delevingne, and Anglophiles of the Regency-era endearment “my dear Cara,” all of which give the name a quietly cosmopolitan sheen. Short, vowel-rich, and free of tricky consonant clusters, Cara requires no diacritical acrobatics on school forms, yet offers enough cultural depth to age gracefully from sandbox to boardroom.