Clarissa
given name · Latin script
Meaning: Latinate form of Clarice occasionally found in medieval documents
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Clarissa is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.
- PHPhilippines≈1 in 4.5K(inferred from the name graph)
- ITItaly≈1 in 9.4K
- USUnited States1 in 10K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- United States (measured from records)
- Sources
- 293 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 4.5K (inferred from the name graph)
33,186 people, 2020
Highest-authority source
Philippines, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
Latinate form of Clarice occasionally found in medieval documents. It was revived by Samuel Richardson as the name of the central character in his novel Clarissa (1748).
Sources 1
- A concise dictionary of first names
Attested across 4 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Clarissa counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | — | 33,186 | 1 in 10K | 33K | Clarissa | 293 |
| PH Philippines | — | ≈24,000 est. | ≈1 in 4.5K | — | Clarissa | 72 |
| BR Brazil | — | 15,862 | 1 in 13K | 16K | Clarissa | 157 |
| IT Italy | — | ≈6,600 est. | ≈1 in 9.4K | 381 | Clarissa | 93 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | ≈2,800 est. | ≈1 in 24K | 3 | Clarissa | 59 |
| AT Austria | — | ≈670 est. | ≈1 in 13K | 641 | — | — |
| HN Honduras | #555 | ≈590 est. | ≈1 in 16K | — | Clarissa | 25 |
33,186 people counted by Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex, 2020. Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror); ISTAT — Contanomi newborn per-name series (1999–2024, JSONP backend); Statistik Austria — STATatlas Vornamen WFS (per-name time series 1984–2024); NRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present). Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Other recorded senses(measured from records)
Clarissa is also recorded in 4 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In Swedish, Se Clary.
as a nameFörnamn i Sverige. Kortfattat namnlexikon
English: Latinate form of CLARICE occasionally found in medieval documents. It was revived by Samuel Richardson as the name of the central character in his novel Clarissa (1748). Cognate: Spanish: Clarisa. See also CAITIR .
as a word
In Latin, alternative letter-case form of clarissa, a member of the Order of Saint Clare
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Catalan, Poor Clare (member of the Order of Saint Clare)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
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.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Agatha Christieb. 1890GBnot in their usual nameEnglish mystery and detective writer (1890–1976)
- Rosalind Hicksb. 1919GBnot in their usual nameAgatha Christie's daughter (1919–2004)
- Clarissa Edenb. 1920GBBritish countess and memoirist (1920–2021)
- Clarissa Pinkola Estésb. 1945USAmerican psychoanalyst and writer
- Clarissa Burtb. 1959USAmerican actress
- Clarissa Davisb. 1967USAmerican basketball player (born 1967)
- Clarissa Wardb. 1980GBAmerican journalist
- Clarissa Chunb. 1981USAmerican sport wrestler
- Clarissa dos Santosb. 1988BRBrazilian basketball player (born 1988)
- Alice Mertonb. 1993DEnot in their usual nameGerman-Canadian singer-songwriter (born 1993)
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(measured from records)
Attested in 84 sources across 48 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 33K | #1,188 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror) | 2022 | 16K | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 16K | #1,244 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Nomes (census name API) | — | 14K | #1,768 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | 2020 | 816 | — |
| AT Austria | Statistik Austria — STATatlas Vornamen WFS (per-name time series 1984–2024) | 2024 | 641 | #1,039 |
| IT Italy | ISTAT — Contanomi newborn per-name series (1999–2024, JSONP backend) | 2024 | 381 | #83 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 212 | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 83 | #1,244 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 43 | #1,188 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1994 | 5 | — |
| AT Austria | Statistik Austria — Vornamen der Geborenen (1984–present) | 2024 | 3 | #1,083 |
Reference works 4
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- Where does the name Clarissa come from?
- Latinate form of Clarice occasionally found in medieval documents. It was revived by Samuel Richardson as the name of the central character in his novel Clarissa (1748). Recorded by A concise dictionary of first names.
- What are other forms of the name Clarissa?
- In the etymology graph, Clara, Clarice and Clarisse are forms of the same name in other languages.
- In which country does Clarissa have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 33 thousand people named Clarissa, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled clarissa.
- Is Clarissa a male or female name?
- Clarissa 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 Clarissa mean?
- Recorded meaning: Latinate form of Clarice occasionally found in medieval documents.
- How common is the name Clarissa?
- In the United States, the national register counted 33,186 people named Clarissa in 2020, about 1 in 10 thousand residents.
- How common is Clarissa compared with other names?
- In Honduras, Clarissa is the 555th most common given name of 23,588 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Clarissa?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/clarissaThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Clarissa” — the 555th most common given name in Honduras. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.