Some American name for a girl (4)
I believe the answer is:
anna
'girl' is the definition.
'some american name for a' is the wordplay.
'some' says to take the centre.
'american' becomes 'Yank' (Yank can informally mean an American).
'name for' becomes 'n' (I've seen this in other clues).
The centre of 'yank' is 'an'.
'an'+'n'+'a'='ANNA'
(Other definitions for anna that I've seen before include "Girl's name (palindrome)" , "Old foreign coin" , "Former Indian coin; girl's name" , "Miss Karenina" , "-- Wintour, editor" .)