Clarice
A feminine name of French origin meaning "bright" or "clear".
Name Census estimates that about 8,095 living Americans carry the first name Clarice. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Clarice today is around 57 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Clarice births was 1921 (600 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Clarice. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
For a British comparison, Name Census UK has a UK baby-name profile for Clarice with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Although Clarice is used almost entirely for girls, the SSA data does show 96 boys registered with the name since 1880.
People living today
8.1K
~ 1 in 42,341 Americans
Peak year
1921
600 babies that year
Average age
57
years old
1936 SSA rank
#2,670
Tracked since 1880
Census
Clarice in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 10,603 people with the first name Clarice, which placed it at #2,368 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#2,368
National first-name rank
People counted
11K
10,603 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
3.5
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
58.7% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Clarice
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Clarice is White at 58.7%. The next largest groups are Black (27.8%) and Hispanic (4.8%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Clarice described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Clarice at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White58.7% · 6,225
- Black or African American27.8% · 2,949
- Hispanic or Latino4.8% · 505
- Asian and Pacific Islander3.8% · 408
- Two or more races3.0% · 316
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.9% · 200
Gender
Gender distribution for Clarice
Out of the 25,517 babies given the name Clarice since 1880, 99.6% were registered as female. The name sits firmly on the female side of the spectrum, with only a handful of male registrations across the entire dataset.
Clarice as a male name
- Ranked #2,670 in 1936
- 8 male births in 1936
- Peak: 1927 (12 births)
Clarice as a female name
- Ranked #2,796 in 2024
- 60 female births in 2024
- Peak: 1921 (600 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Clarice appears almost entirely female. Of the 10,598 people counted with this name, 99.7% were female and only a very small share were male.
Popularity
Clarice: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Clarice from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 15 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1920s, with 5,641 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1920s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Clarice by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Clarice during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Clarices live
The SSA's state-level files cover 46 states and territories. California, Texas, Minnesota recorded the most babies named Clarice, while Wyoming, New Mexico, Rhode Island recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 403 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Clarice
The name Clarice has its origins in the Latin language, derived from the Roman family name Clarus, which means "bright" or "clear." It emerged during the ancient Roman era and was initially used as a feminine form of the masculine name Clarus.
The earliest documented use of the name Clarice can be traced back to the 12th century, when it appeared in medieval records and literature. One of the earliest known bearers of the name was Clarice dei Gherardini, a 12th-century Italian noblewoman from Florence, who was the wife of Tancred of Lecce, a Norman prince.
In the 13th century, Clarice gained prominence as the name of Clarice Strozzi, an Italian noblewoman from the powerful Strozzi family of Florence. She was the wife of Niccolo Machiavelli, the renowned political philosopher and author of the influential work "The Prince."
The name Clarice also appeared in religious contexts, such as in the 14th century when Clarice of Montefalco, an Italian Augustinian nun, was known for her mystic visions and was later canonized as a saint by the Catholic Church.
Another notable bearer of the name was Clarice Orsini, an Italian noblewoman from the Orsini family, who lived in the 15th century. She was the wife of Lorenzo de' Medici, the famous ruler of Florence during the Italian Renaissance.
In the 16th century, Clarice Strozzi, an Italian noblewoman and poet, was a significant figure in the literary circles of Renaissance Italy. She was renowned for her poetry and her patronage of the arts.
Over the centuries, the name Clarice has been borne by several other notable individuals, including Clarice Cliff, a 20th-century English ceramic artist and designer known for her distinctive Art Deco pottery; Clarice Lispector, a 20th-century Brazilian writer and pioneer of the modern novel in her country; and Clarice Starling, the protagonist of the novel "The Silence of the Lambs" by Thomas Harris.
People
Clarice + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Clarice as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with C
Other first names starting with C with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Clarice: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Clarice?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 8,095 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Clarice going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 42,341 US residents.
Is Clarice a common name?
We classify Clarice as "Rare". It ranks above 97.4% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 25,517 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Clarice most popular?
The single biggest year for Clarice was 1921, when 600 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Clarice is about 57 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Clarice in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 10,603 people with the name Clarice, or 3.51 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #2,368 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Clarice in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Clarice?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Clarice appears almost entirely female. Of the 10,598 people counted with this name, 99.7% were female and only a very small share were male. The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Clarice?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Clarice is White at 58.7%. The next largest groups are Black (27.8%) and Hispanic (4.8%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Clarice most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Clarice in the 2020 Census, accounting for 58.7% (6,225 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Clarice in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Clarice a female name?
Yes, 99.6% of people registered as Clarice in the SSA data are female. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Is Clarice still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Clarice in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Clarice can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.
How many people are named Clarice?
Our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers how many Americans are named Clarice at a glance, with the living-bearer count up front.