Ciara

Ciara is a feminine form of Ciarán, a name built on the Irish ciar, “dark” or “black”, so it is usually taken to mean dark-haired. Ciarán itself started as a byname and spread through the fame of early Irish saints. Ciara as a girl’s name is a fairly modern formation.

There was also a seventh-century Irish abbess, known in English as Saint Cera, whose name appears in many spellings, Ciara among them. Her story is tangled up with another woman of a similar name, and the records are not clear.

Ciara was one of the defining Irish girls’ names of the late twentieth century. It was given to 624 girls in 1997, its highest count, and it reached number 2 in 1998. It has fallen a long way since, to number 106 in 2025. It was never as common in Northern Ireland, where its best place was 18th, in 1997.