Arah
Feminine · “wayfarer”
Arah is a name from the dry parts of the Hebrew Bible — the genealogies, where hundreds of people are listed and almost none of them do anything. It belongs to a man of the tribe of Asher and to a family that came back from exile. In America it has been given almost entirely to daughters, which is a quiet reversal nobody arranged.
How old is the name Arah?
Arah first appears in US birth records in 1882 — 143 years ago. The typical Arah alive today was born around 1977, making them about 48 years old. About 300 people named Arah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Arah most popular?
Arah peaked in 1882, reaching #813 nationally. Today it ranks #13208, 12,395 places below that high. See the whole 1882 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Arach to Arah
The story of Arah
Arah appears twice in the Hebrew Bible: once in the list of Asher's descendants in Chronicles, once as the head of a family among those who returned from Babylon in Ezra. Both are men. English Protestants read those lists carefully and mined them for names, and a great many obscure biblical names entered English use that way in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. What happened afterward in America is the ordinary drift: a short name ending in an open vowel gets heard as a woman's name, and this one crossed over completely without anyone deciding it should.
Meaningscholars disagree
wayfarer, one on the road
The name is usually connected to the Hebrew orach, a way or a path, giving something like traveler or wayfarer. That is the standard reading but it is not secure — genealogical names are often older than the language that records them. Some American families arrived at this spelling instead by way of Sarah or Ara, in which case a different history applies entirely.
How the name formed
- Arach
- Arah
Related forms: Arach
Pronouncing Arah
AIR-uh
Two syllables, stress on the first, with the final h silent — English does not say an h at the end of a word. Some families say AR-uh with a flatter first vowel; both are heard.
Nicknames for Arah
Limited
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
- 1882
- Most girls named
- 201316 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #813reached in 1882
- Change vs 2023
- +20.0%6 in 2025, from 5
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.
Arah in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Arach in Hebrew — transliteration
Arahs among us
people named Arah are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 267,878 born in 2025 was named Arah
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Arah
- #13208
- Arah on the 2025 chart
- #890
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Arah went to 6 girls in 2025, but Ara, Aara and Arra are the same name said out loud. Together the 4 spellings went to 70, which makes it the 890th most-given girls’ name of the year — 12,318 places above the chart.
- Ara48
- Aara11
- Arah6
- Arra5
About 1 girl in 22,961 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 267,878 for Arah 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
Fashion outlook
Arah 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
Arah beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Arah in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Four letters, two open syllables, and easy in any accent.
- It is a documented scriptural name that virtually nobody else will have.
- Ara is available as a short form and is a real name in several traditions.
- It sits well after long or consonant-heavy surnames.
- The final h is silent and will be dropped by people writing quickly.
- In the Hebrew Bible it belongs to men, which anyone who knows those passages will mention.
- Ara, Aria and Sarah all sit close enough in sound to cause mishearing.
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Arah
Feminine · #13208 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Arahs are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 300 people named Arah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Arah?
- Arah is one of 4 recorded spellings. Ara is the more common one — 48 births in 2025 against 6 for Arah.
- How popular is the name Arah in 2025?
- Arah ranks #13208 among US girl names in 2025, with 6 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Arah?
- About 1 in every 267,878 US girls born in 2025 was named Arah — 6 in all.
- Will my child share the name Arah with classmates?
- Arah will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Arah
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
John#13208 · Vinnie#13208 · Margery#13208 · Jossie#13208 · Tressa#13208 · Erie#13208 · Bernadine#13208 · Euna#13208
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Arah? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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