Kiara (/kiˈɑːrə/ kee-AR-ə or /ˈkɪərə/ KEER-ə) is a given name with various origins.
It may be a variant of the Italian name Chiara, meaning bright, or the Irish name Ciara, meaning dark-haired.
It has also been used for girls in Japan in recent years and classified as part of a trend for kira-kira or shiny names notable for using uncommon kanji characters to spell names that have novel meanings or pronunciations.
For instance, the given name of Kiara Sato (Japanese: 佐藤 妃星), a member of the Japanese idol girl group AKB48 Team 4, uses kanji characters meaning princess and star.
In the United States it has been among the top 1,000 names for newborn girls since 1988.