Amira
Feminine · Arabic roots · “Princess" in Arabic”
Amira is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 25,609 girls against 5 boys since 1880.
Amira runs on three open vowels and a stress that lands squarely in the middle, which is why it survives being said quickly across a playground. It is at home in Arabic, in Bosnian, and in Hebrew, and it has been carried in all three for generations. In English-speaking countries it arrived comparatively late and has been climbing steadily since.
How old is the name Amira?
Amira first appears in US birth records in 1963 — 62 years ago. The typical Amira is a kid of about 7 — this name's wave is very recent. About 25,500 people named Amira are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Amira most popular?
Amira peaked in 2023, reaching #131 nationally. Today it ranks #132, 1 places below that high. See the whole 2023 chart.
Amira appears on these lists:
- Vowel names: soft starts from A to O
- About to go mainstream: next year's top-100
- The sweet spot: familiar but not everywhere
- Five-letter names, the comfortable middle
- Names predicted to enter the top 100 by 2030
- The names with the most spellings
- all guides
Works in Arabic families too:
Where it comes from
From amīr (Arabic, "commander, prince") to Amira
The story of Amira
The Arabic line is the older and wider one: from the root ʼ-m-r, "to command," comes amīr, the title borne by commanders and princes across the medieval Islamic world, and from it the feminine amīra. The word traveled into European languages as emir long before the name did, so English speakers already knew the sound in another shape. The name itself spread with Arabic through North Africa, the Levant and into the Balkans, where Amira has been ordinary in Bosnia for generations. The Hebrew Amira arrived by a wholly separate road, built on amir, treetop, and became a standard modern Hebrew given name in the twentieth century.
Meaningscholars disagree
"Princess" in Arabic; "treetop" or "utterance" in Hebrew
Two separate names share this spelling. The Arabic أميرة is the feminine of amīr, "prince, commander" — the same root that gives English emir and the name of the United Arab Emirates. The Hebrew אֲמִירָה comes from a root meaning both the topmost bough of a tree and the act of saying something. Neither reading is a variant of the other; which one applies depends on the family.
How the name formed
- amīrArabic, "commander, prince"
- amīra
- Amira / Ameera / Amirah
Related forms: أميرة (Amirah) · Amira · אֲמִירָה (Amira) · Ameera · Amirah · Emire
Pronouncing Amira
uh-MEER-uh
Stress on the middle syllable. Arabic and Bosnian speakers often say it closer to ah-MEE-rah, with a fuller first and final vowel; both are the same name, and English speakers usually manage it on the first hearing.
Nicknames for Amira
High
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
- 1963
- Most girls named
- 20242,182 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #131reached in 2023
- Change vs 2024
- −0.6%2,168 in 2025, from 2,182
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.
Amira in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- أميرة (Amirah) in Arabic — transliteration
- Amira in Bosnian — same name
- אֲמִירָה (Amira) in Hebrew — transliteration
- Ameera in Urdu — spelling variant
- Amirah in English — spelling variant
- Emire in Turkish — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, New York.
Amiras among us
people named Amira are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 741 born in 2025 was named Amira
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Amira
- #132
- Amira on the 2025 chart
- #95
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Amira went to 2,168 girls in 2025, but Amirah, Amyra and Amyrah and the rest below are the same name said out loud. Together the 11 spellings went to 3,114, which makes it the 95th most-given girls’ name of the year — 37 places above the chart.
and 6 rarer spellings.
About 1 girl in 516 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 741 for Amira itself.
Spellings are grouped by a fixed rule that folds interchangeable English spellings of one sound (ck/k, ph/f, x/ks, a non-initial y for i) and keeps vowels apart, so Sean and Shawn stay separate names. It errs towards splitting: a family here is never larger than the truth. SSA national data, 2025. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Jan test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Amira's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Jan climbed just as high around 1954, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Jan's path sketches the road Amira is walking now.
Amira 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 Amira is headed
Amira looks set to keep climbing gently, with roughly 34% more babies a year by 2030 if the current curve holds.
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.
Amira beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Amira in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Works in Arabic, Bosnian, Hebrew and English without translation or reshaping — one spelling that travels across several languages.
- Reads correctly from the page for most English speakers on first sight, with no silent letters and no ambiguous consonants.
- Has ready-made short forms: Mira for everyday use, Mimi and Ami within the family.
- Documented as a name for centuries in Arabic, so it has a long record behind a recent American arrival.
- Still rare enough in US classrooms that a child is unlikely to share it, while the sound itself is widely familiar.
- Ameera, Amirah and Amyra all circulate, so expect to spell it aloud fairly often. Picking one form early and sticking to it saves the most trouble.
- It is on a clear upward path in the US, so a child born now will likely meet more Amiras as a teenager than as a toddler.
- The sound sits close to Amara, Almira, Samira and Mira, and mix-ups among those are the usual small annoyance rather than anything worse.
- "Princess" is a meaning some relatives will comment on. The Hebrew reading, treetop, is equally real, and worth having ready if the first one is not the one you meant.
Nobody names a baby alone.
Put Amira to the vote.
Add it to a family vote or a couple’s swipe deck — the other person gets one card, a simple answer and room to say why. No app, no account for them.
Only the people you invite can see your list.
Already decided on Amira? Hide it among decoys and let them guess.
What they receive
Someone added a name to your list
Amira
Feminine · Arabic roots · #132 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Amiras are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 25,500 people named Amira are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Amira?
- Amira is the most-used spelling in US records — 2,168 of the 3,114 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Amirah, Amyra, Amyrah and Amirra.
- How popular is the name Amira in 2025?
- Amira ranks #132 among US girl names in 2025, with 2,168 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Amira?
- About 1 in every 741 US girls born in 2025 was named Amira — 2,168 in all.
- Will my child share the name Amira with classmates?
- Amira will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Amira
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Charlie#133 · Julia#131 · Alina#130 · Eva#134 · Serenity#129 · Savannah#135 · Bella#136 · Ariana#128
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Amira? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Amira and another name?
See them side by side — full stats, history and a gentle verdict.
Compare side by sideIn a hurry? Just pick a winner — one tap, no sign-up, and you see how everyone else voted.
Or jump into a head-to-head
Weighing a whole shortlist? Add the rest in the builder, or settle it with a bracket.
Cast your vote
Which one would you pick?
Your gut first, the numbers after — the split shows once you pick.
US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
No advertising trackers and no data sellinghow we handle your dataindependent and founder-run, about Name Battle