Amir
Masculine · “prince”
Amir is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 55,747 boys against 510 girls since 1880. See Amir as a girl name
Amir is the Arabic word for a commander or prince, and it has been a title as much as a name — the same word that gave English both "emir" and, by way of medieval Mediterranean sailors, "admiral." It is two syllables that land firmly on the second, and it is spoken with a similar ease in Cairo, Istanbul, Sarajevo, Tel Aviv and Jakarta.
How old is the name Amir?
Amir first appears in US birth records in 1954 — 71 years ago. The typical Amir is a kid of about 8 — this name's wave is very recent. About 55,000 people named Amir are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Amir most popular?
Amir peaked in 2024, reaching #95 nationally. Today it ranks #105, 10 places below that high. See the whole 2024 chart.
Amir appears on these lists:
- Short and sweet: names of four letters or fewer
- Vowel names: soft starts from A to O
- The sweet spot: familiar but not everywhere
- Names predicted to enter the top 100 by 2030
- Arabic names in American use
- all guides
Works in Arabic families too:
Where it comes from
From amīr (Arabic: one who commands) to Amir
The story of Amir
The Arabic amīr began as a word for one who commands, and it became a formal title across the Islamic world — most famously in amīr al-muʼminīn, commander of the faithful, borne by caliphs from the seventh century onward. As a title it traveled with Arabic itself into Persian, Turkish (as Emir), Urdu, Malay and the Balkans, and along the way European languages borrowed it twice: once plainly as "emir" and once, filtered through medieval Latin and Romance, as "admiral." Independently, Hebrew has its own Amir, a nature word for the top of a tree, in use as a modern given name in Israel. In the United States the name has been on the books for generations, but the bulk of its wave is recent, which is why most people carrying it here are still young.
Meaning
prince, commander (Arabic)
The Arabic amīr comes from a root meaning to command or to order. A separate Hebrew name spelled the same way, Amir, means the crown or top of a tree, and also a sheaf of cut grain — so the same four letters reach children by two unrelated roads, depending on the family.
How the name formed
- amīrArabic: one who commands
- Amīr
- EmirTurkish
- Amir
Related forms: أمير · Emir · Ameer · Amir · Amir · אמיר
Pronouncing Amir
ah-MEER
The stress falls on the second syllable in Arabic, Hebrew and Persian alike. In American English you will also hear uh-MEER, and occasionally a front-stressed AH-mir from people guessing at the spelling — worth saying it aloud once at introductions.
Nicknames for Amir
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
- 1954
- Most boys named
- 20243,640 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #95reached in 2024
- Change vs 2024
- −9.4%3,297 in 2025, from 3,640
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.
Amir in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- أمير in Arabic — transliteration
- Emir in Turkish — related form
- Ameer in Urdu — spelling variant
- Amir in Persian — same name
- Amir in Bosnian — same name
- אמיר in Hebrew — transliteration
Strongest US states over the last decade: Florida, Texas, New York. INSEE rounds every published count to the nearest five for statistical confidentiality; the ranks are calculated from the exact figures. International figures from INSEE. Sources
Amirs among us
people named Amir are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 518 born in 2025 was named Amir
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 Maurice test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Amir's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Maurice climbed just as high around 1914, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Maurice's path sketches the road Amir is walking now.
Amir sits in the calm middle of the cycle — neither chasing a wave nor sliding off one. Middle-of-the-cycle names age slowly and predictably.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Amir is headed
Amir should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
High 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.
Amir beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Amir in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Short, phonetic and readable at first sight for most English speakers, with no silent letters to explain.
- Works as a native name across Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Urdu, Malay, Bosnian and Hebrew-speaking communities.
- Also charts in France, so it travels without becoming a foreign object.
- The related English words emir and admiral give listeners an anchor for the sound and the sense.
- Long unbroken documented history as both a word and a title, rather than a recent coinage.
- Ameer, Amer and the Turkish Emir are all in circulation, and Amari and Amira are close neighbors in sound — expect to spell it aloud and to correct the occasional wrong form.
- The meaning is a live word, not a faded one: Arabic speakers hear "prince" or "commander" straight away, which some families love and others find a lot to carry.
- Because two separate names — Arabic and Hebrew — meet at this spelling, people will sometimes assume a background your family may not have. A one-line answer usually settles it.
- Its American wave is recent, so most people carrying the name here are still children; there is not yet a long line of adult Amirs to make it feel established.
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What they receive
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Amir
Masculine · #105 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Amirs are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 55,000 people named Amir are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Amir in 2025?
- Amir ranks #105 among US boy names in 2025, with 3,297 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Amir?
- About 1 in every 518 US boys born in 2025 was named Amir — 3,297 in all.
- Will my child share the name Amir with classmates?
- Amir will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Amir
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Dominic#106 · Eli#104 · Vincent#107 · Colton#103 · Xavier#108 · Parker#102 · Adam#101 · Damian#109
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Amir? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Amir and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration; international figures from national statistics agencies. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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