Cara Girl
How popular is Cara?
#1,326 girl name in 2025
168 baby girls were named Cara in the US in 2025, making it the 1326th most popular girl name.
Cara popularity over time
Boys Girls
| Rank in 2025 | #1,326 for girls (▼ 30 from 2024) |
|---|---|
| Babies in 2025 | 168 girls |
| 10-year trend | Falling fast (-57% babies vs 2015) |
| Earlier ranks | #728 in 2015, #907 in 2020 |
| Peak year | 1985 (1,465 girls) |
| Highest rank | #184 in 1985 |
| First recorded | 1882 |
| Boys vs girls (last 10 years) | 0% boys, 100% girls |
| Chance a classmate shares it | 0.1% in a class of 25 kids born in 2025 |
Cara counting every spelling
Social Security counts each spelling as its own name. Adding together the spellings that sound alike, the Kara family of names ranked #676 for girls in 2025 (#615 the year before), with 399 babies in all.
| Spelling | Girls in 2025 | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Kara | 226 | 57% |
| Cara | 168 | 42% |
| Carah | 5 | 1% |
Spellings are grouped by how they sound, using our own rules, so a few groupings may not match how your family says the name.
Where Cara is most popular
Babies named Cara per 1,000 girls born in each state, 2021 to 2025. Darker means more common.
- Massachusetts: 0.3 per 1,000 (36 girls)
- New Jersey: 0.2 per 1,000 (45 girls)
- New York: 0.2 per 1,000 (87 girls)
- Pennsylvania: 0.2 per 1,000 (48 girls)
- Illinois: 0.2 per 1,000 (43 girls)
Cara by decade
| Decade | Baby girls | Best rank |
|---|---|---|
| 1880s | 63 | #629 |
| 1890s | 91 | #839 |
| 1900s | 113 | #917 |
| 1910s | 219 | #997 |
| 1920s | 281 | #1,166 |
| 1930s | 305 | #1,063 |
| 1940s | 492 | #1,055 |
| 1950s | 1,291 | #706 |
| 1960s | 5,779 | #274 |
| 1970s | 10,413 | #189 |
| 1980s | 13,277 | #184 |
| 1990s | 9,844 | #228 |
| 2000s | 6,034 | #393 |
| 2010s | 3,830 | #609 |
| 2020s | 1,273 | #907 |
Girl names about as popular as Cara
Questions
- Is Cara a boy or girl name?
- Cara is mostly a girl name. Over the last 10 years, 100% of babies named Cara were girls.
- How popular is the name Cara?
- 168 baby girls were named Cara in the US in 2025, making it the 1326th most popular girl name.
- When was Cara most popular?
- Cara peaked in 1985, when 1,465 girls were given the name. Its highest rank was #184 in 1985.
- How many people are named Cara?
- 53,367 babies have been named Cara in the US since 1880. We estimate about 50,260 of them are alive in 2026, with a median age of 40.
- Where is Cara most popular?
- From 2021 to 2025, Cara was most common in Massachusetts, at 0.3 of every 1,000 girls born there.
Source: Social Security Administration baby name data, 1880 to 2025 (names given to at least 5 babies of a sex in a year). Living-people and median-age figures are our estimates using US life tables. How we calculate.