Clara

The name owes its Christian prominence to Saint Clare of Assisi (1194-1253), the Italian noblewoman who renounced her inheritance to follow Francis of Assisi and founded the Order of Poor Ladies, later renamed the Poor Clares.

Canonized in 1255, she became the patron saint of television in 1958, on account of a vision she reportedly experienced of a distant Mass projected on the wall of her cell.

A second figure, Saint Clare of Montefalco, an Augustinian mystic of the thirteenth century, reinforced the devotional appeal of the name across Catholic Europe.

Literature and music have repeatedly drawn on Clara. Robert Schumann’s wife Clara Schumann (1819-1896) was one of the most celebrated pianists of the Romantic era and a composer in her own right. The heroine of E.T.A.

Hoffmann’s The Nutcracker and the Mouse King (1816), familiar from Tchaikovsky’s ballet, bears the name, as does the angelic Clara Sesemann in Johanna Spyri’s Heidi (1881).

More recently, Clara Oswald served as a companion in the BBC’s Doctor Who from 2012 to 2015.

Clara entered the United States Social Security Administration rankings at 16th in 1880 and remained inside the top 50 until 1910. It declined steadily through the twentieth century, falling out of the top 1,000 between 1992 and 1995.

A strong revival began in the early 2000s, parallel to the renewed taste for Latinate vintage names, and Clara now sits within the top 100. It remains a top-20 choice in Spain, Portugal, Brazil, Sweden, and German-speaking countries.

Notable bearers include American humanitarian Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross, and Danish actress Clara Rugaard.