Cher comes from French cher, meaning "dear" or "beloved," and became established as a short given name.
Cher arrives in English from the French chère, meaning 'dear' or 'beloved' — an endearment so fundamental that it appears in the opening of countless French letters and songs. Its Latin ancestor is carus, 'dear' or 'precious,' a root that wound its way through Romance languages to become the Spanish and Italian querido and the French term of affection. As a given name in English, Cher is most closely related to Cherie and Sherry, each drawing from the same well of Franco-Latin warmth.
The name is inseparable from its most famous bearer: Cher, born Cherilyn Sarkisian in 1946, who became simply Cher with the same mononymic authority as Madonna or Prince. Her career arc — from 1960s folk-pop with Sonny Bono, through disco reinvention, Hollywood stardom and an Academy Award for Moonstruck, to a late-career pop resurgence that would embarrass artists a third her age — made her name a cultural landmark. The brevity of it became part of her statement: one syllable, no apology, utterly unmistakable.
As a given name for children, Cher enjoyed its highest American usage in the 1960s and 1970s, riding the entertainer's initial wave of fame, then faded as her name became too synonymous with a single person to feel freely available. Today it reads as a vintage find — French in its warmth, bold in its brevity, and carrying a faint shimmer of sequins and defiance that is, perhaps, not the worst thing to pass along to a daughter.