Why is her name Marie instead of Clara?

In the ballet she tends to be known as Clara...the cartoon movie from the early '90's went with this. But in the original E.T.A. Hoffman tale she is Marie. There are a few things different from the original story. Inlcuding Dosselmyers role in the whole thing..the ballet tends to make him out as one who wants Marie to forget the fantasy world in the end...especially in the 1977 Barishnokov (spelling?) version that I know so well from my dvd. As well as a movie done in 1985 i think it was. Dosselmyer is actually more encouraging of believing "childish" dreams than he's depicted in the ballet. Quite dissapointing. I wish there was a ballet version with the same music put to the proper story. I've never felt the second part of the ballet had much of a plot other than "Hey it's a party". But still lovely to watch. I love the Pas de Deux but I think it's more suiting to plot when people like Barishnokov make it Marie/Clara and the Nutcracker rather than the Sugar Plum Fairy and her Cavalier...which to me seems pointless. Though don't get me wrong..I love faeries;)

Anyhow bottom line is I guess they wanted to keep the name the same as in the original story. Something I sure won't complain about myself heh.

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actually... she was originally named Marie. Thats the way it was in the original store... though... i'm not entirely sure why they changed it to Clara...

About.com claims that the original story by Hoffmann was written with the name Clara, where she was actually an orphan that was taken in by the Stahlbaum family to clean the house.
Alexandre Dumas then rewrote the story and changed the name to Marie and made her a daughter. This was the story on which the ballet was based.
But because there are two versions of the story, certain aspects of both tales intertwine.

But I haven't read the novel, so I'm not sure if there's any truth to this claim.