Clarice as a Baby Name. Meaning and Origin of Clarice

What is the meaning of the name Clarice ?

The baby name Clarice is a Female name , 2 syllables long and is pronounced /kləˈriːs/ (kuh-REECE).

Clarice is Latin in Origin.

Clarice stems from the Latin clarus, meaning clear, bright, renowned, carried into medieval Europe via Old French Clarice/Clarisse and related to Clara and Clare. It appears in English records from the 12th century, often as Clarice or Claricia, and in Italy the form Clarice was borne by Renaissance noblewoman Clarice Orsini, wife of Lorenzo de' Medici.

Use waned after the Middle Ages, then revived with 19th-century romantic medievalism; in the U.S. and U.K. it saw modest popularity in the early 1900s. Modern recognition rose again through Thomas Harris’s character Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs. Variants and cognates include Clarisse (French), Clarissa (Latinate elaboration), Clara, Clare, Claire, and Italian Chiara; medieval Latin forms such as Claricia also appear. Short forms include Clary and Clare. The name’s core sense remains luminous: clarity, brightness, and fame.