Cara is a girl's name of Italian origin meaning “dear and friend.” In 2024 it was given to 178 girls in the United States.
Cara belongs to the Italian tradition. Its meaning — “dear and friend” — is the sense carried by its Italian roots, and it is the meaning we verified against published sources for this page. It travels in a few spellings: Kara.
In the United States, Cara first appears in Social Security records in 1882. It climbed to its best-ever rank of #184 in 1985, and in 2024 178 babies received the name — 53,135 in total since 1880. Those are the official counts, not estimates.
More names from the Italian shelf:
Cara means “dear and friend” in its Italian roots. We check every meaning against published sources before it appears here.
Cara is a girl name. In 2024, 178 babies received the name in the US.
Cara comes from the Italian tradition. It is also spelled Kara.
Cara first appears in US records in 1882. Its best-ever ranking was #184 in 1985, and 178 babies were given the name in 2024.
Meaning and origin for this page were checked against this source. US popularity figures are from the Social Security Administration's public baby-names data. England & Wales figures are from the Office for National Statistics. If you spot an error, write to [email protected] — accuracy is the whole point of this site, and corrections are made fast.
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