Amara
Feminine · “grace' in Igbo”
Amara is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 28,982 girls against 297 boys since 1880.
Amara is one of those rare spellings that grew up in several places at once: it is a word for grace in Igbo, a word for undying in Sanskrit, and the feminine of the Latin adjective for bitter. In English it lands as three open vowels in a row, with the stress in the middle, which is why it sits easily beside names as different as Amira and Tamara. It arrived in American records in the second half of the twentieth century and has been climbing steadily since.
How old is the name Amara?
Amara first appears in US birth records in 1961 — 64 years ago. The typical Amara is a kid of about 6 — this name's wave is very recent. About 29,000 people named Amara are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Amara most popular?
Amara peaked in 2025, reaching #98 nationally. Today it ranks #98, exactly where it peaked. See the whole 2025 chart.
Where it comes from
Origin, sound and short forms
The story of Amara
There is no single homeland for this name. The Igbo of southeastern Nigeria have long used amara, grace, as a name element, most fully in Amarachi and Amarachukwu, and the short form Amara travels with Igbo families wherever they settle. Independently, Sanskrit amara, undying, gave names across South Asia, including the masculine Amar still in wide use. And independently again, Latin amara survived into Italian and Romanian as an everyday word rather than a name. American usage draws mainly on the first two roads, with the West African line the most visible; the name entered US records in the second half of the twentieth century and has been rising since.
Meaningscholars disagree
'grace' in Igbo; 'immortal, undying' in Sanskrit; 'bitter' in Latin
These are three genuinely separate roots that happen to meet at one spelling. In Igbo, amara means grace or mercy, and sits inside the longer names Amarachi and Amarachukwu, 'God's grace'. In Sanskrit, amara means immortal or undying, the negative of a root for dying. In Latin, amara is the feminine of amarus, bitter, and survives in Italian as the ordinary word. Which reading applies depends entirely on which tradition a family is drawing from, and none of the three cancels the others.
Pronouncing Amara
uh-MAR-uh
The usual American reading puts the stress on the middle syllable. In Igbo the three syllables are more evenly weighted, closer to ah-MAH-rah, and many families keep that fuller vowel. Both are correct; it helps to decide which one you will be repeating.
Nicknames for Amara
Moderate
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1961
- Most girls named
- 20252,630 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #98reached in 2025
- Change vs 2024
- +14.5%2,630 in 2025, from 2,296
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Amara in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Amarachi in Igbo — related form
- Amarachukwu in Igbo — related form
- Amar in Sanskrit / Hindi — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Florida.
Amaras among us
people named Amara are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 611 born in 2025 was named Amara
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Rachael test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Amara's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Rachael climbed just as high around 1987, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Rachael's path sketches the road Amara is walking now.
Amara is climbing fast right now. Steep climbs tend to come with steep descents — the quicker a name arrives, the more firmly it belongs to its moment.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Amara is headed
Amara should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
Medium confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Amara beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Amara in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Spelled the way it sounds in English, with no silent letters and no fork in the road for a stranger reading it aloud.
- Belongs independently to Igbo, Sanskrit and Latin traditions, so it is recognizable rather than foreign in a wide range of families.
- Has real short forms already in use — Mara, Ama — rather than none at all or one you would have to invent.
- Unambiguously recorded as a girl's name in the US, so it carries no explaining on forms or first days of school.
- It sits in a crowded sound-neighborhood — Amira, Amaya, Amora, Tamara — so expect the occasional gentle correction rather than outright misspelling.
- Italian and Romanian speakers will hear the everyday word for 'bitter' before they hear a name. Worth knowing if that is your family's language.
- The name is on a clear upward path. A child born now is likely to meet more Amaras by high school than the current picture suggests, though nothing near the level of a top-ten name.
- If the Igbo 'grace' reading is the one that matters to you, be ready to say so, since most people here will not know the root.
Nobody names a baby alone.
Put Amara to the vote.
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What they receive
Someone added a name to your list
Amara
Feminine · #98 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Amaras are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 29,000 people named Amara are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Amara in 2025?
- Amara ranks #98 among US girl names in 2025, with 2,630 babies given the name.
- How common is the name Amara?
- About 1 in every 611 US girls born in 2025 was named Amara — 2,630 in all.
- Will my child share the name Amara with classmates?
- Amara will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Amara
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Georgia#99 · Quinn#97 · Caroline#96 · Juniper#100 · Jade#95 · Aaliyah#101 · Sienna#94 · Margot#102
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Amara? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Amara and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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