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I have just written a column on the name Cara (and Kara). Its history of usage seems to me to show that it was originally mostly a pet form of Caroline, with some help from the Latin. The word "cara" meant in Latin about what it means in modern Italian, but the first references to that meaning go back to Latin, not Italian, and it has never been used as a name in Italy, so I think it was learned people in Scandinavia who first used it based on the Latin meaning.

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I think it was only after Cara was established as a name that people noticed it accidentally was the same as the Irish word for "friend" and started using it thinking of that as the derivation. Cara does not seem to have been used as a name in ancient or medieval Ireland, and I so far have not found any references to the possible Irish derivation before the 20th century.

I'll add that the usage of Cara as a given name in English can also have been influenced by the name Caroline (and its nickname Carrie).

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Caroline "Cara" Bray* is an example from the 19h century.

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* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caroline_Bray

This message was edited 3/2/2021, 12:06 AM

Cara is a name here, and as you say it is the Irish word for friend. Official letters often (even in English) start "A chara", instead of "Dear". It is also one of the first Irish words kids learn in school.

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https://www.teanglann.ie/en/fgb/Cara

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It was 30 in 2020. https://www.cso.ie/en/interactivezone/visualisationtools/babynamesofireland/

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I can think of one Cara, and a Kara off the top of my head (her mother said Kara was named for the Italian word though. ) I have seen the spelling Caragh too.

If it does indeed mean 'friend', then all that proves is that Gaelic is an Indo-European language; which we knew. And, since Latin was only recently discontinued as a liturgical language and a school subject, I would bet on the familiarity of carus/cara = dear, beloved as a factor in the word's usage as a name in Ireland. Of course, Cara has also been used elsewhere, but there isn't much connection between Italian and English name usage so my bet is on Latin.

Not much of a help, but I think it can certainly be considered akin to the the Brythonic Celtic "car" meaning love, as in the Welsh masculine name Caradog (Latinised as Caractacus)and seen in the modern female Welsh name Carys.