Clarissa is a female given name borrowed from Latin, Italian, and Portuguese,[1] originally denoting a nun of the Roman Catholic Order of St. Clare. It is a combination of St. Clare of Assisi's Latin name Clara (originally meaning "clear" and "bright") and the suffix -issa, equivalent to -ess. Clarice is an anglicization of Clarisse, the French form of the same name. Clarisa is the Spanish form of the name,[1] and Klárisza the Hungarian.[2] The given names Clara, Clare, and Claire are all cognates, as are the surnames Sinclair and St. Clair.
| Gender | Female |
|---|---|
| Origin | |
| Word/name | Latin, Italian, Portuguese |
| Meaning | clear, bright, famous |
| Other names | |
| Related names | Clara, Clarisse, Clarice, Clare, Clair, Sinclair, St. Clair |
| [1] | |
Notable people edit
- Clara Barton (Clarissa Harlowe Barton, 1821–1912), American humanitarian who founded the American Red Cross
- Clarissa Britain (1816–1895), American inventor
- Clarissa Davis (born 1967), American coach and women's basketball hall-of-famer
- Clarissa Dickson Wright (1947–2014), English celebrity chef
- Clarissa F. Dye (1832–1921), Civil War nurse from Philadelphia
- Clarissa Eden, Countess of Avon (1920–2021)
- Clarissa Pinkola Estés (born 1945), American writer and Jungian psychoanalyst
- Clarissa Caldwell Lathrop (1847–1892), American social reformer, autobiographer
- Clarissa Kaye (1931–1994), Australian stage, film and television actress
- Clarissa Ward (born 1980), British-American television journalist
- Clarissa Stadler (born 1966), Austrian journalist, moderator and writer
Fictional characters edit
- Clarissa Explains It All, a children's TV show in the 1990s
- Clarissa Dalloway in Mrs Dalloway, a 1925 novel by Virginia Woolf
- Clarissa "Clary" Fray in The Mortal Instruments novel series
- Clarissa Harlowe, the heroine of Samuel Richardson's 1748 tragic epistolary novel Clarissa, or, the History of a Young Lady
- Clarissa Hailsham-Brown in Spider's Web, a 1954 play by Agatha Christie
- Clarissa Mellon in Enduring Love, a 1997 novel by Ian McEwan
- Clarissa Saunders in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, a 1939 film
See also edit
- Clarissa (disambiguation)
- Poor Clares, nuns of the Order of St Clare, also called the Clarissas or Clarisses
- Claire (given name)
- Clara (given name)
- Clare (given name)
- Clarice
References edit
- ^ a b c Bruggeman, David. "Clarissa," WikiName - All About Names Archived 2009-08-13 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Norman, Tessa (July 2003). A World of Baby Names. New York: Perigree. p. 126. ISBN 0-399-52894-6.
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