Aura
Feminine · Greek roots · “breeze”
Aura is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 5,016 girls against 12 boys since 1880.
Aura is the Latin word for a breeze — borrowed into Latin from Greek, kept whole, and never really altered since. It has been on American birth records for well over a century, quietly and without interruption, and after a long stretch in the background it is being given again. Two syllables, both open vowels, and nothing in it to trip over.
How old is the name Aura?
Aura first appears in US birth records in 1881 — 144 years ago. The typical Aura alive today was born around 2011, making them about 14 years old. About 4,300 people named Aura are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Aura most popular?
Aura peaked in 1882, reaching #507 nationally. Today it ranks #817, 310 places below that high. See the whole 1882 chart.
Aura appears on these lists:
Where it comes from
From aúra (Greek) to Aura
The story of Aura
The word began in Greek as aúra, a breath of moving air, and passed intact into Latin, where poets used it for the breeze off the sea. In the fifth-century Greek epic Dionysiaca, Nonnus gives the name Aura to a huntress of the winds, which is the earliest well-known use of it as a personal name. As a given name in the modern world it arrives by two routes: directly from the Latin word, which is also a living noun in Spanish and Italian, and from Finnish, where Aura is both a river and a long-standing name. In American records it has been present since the nineteenth century, never crowded, never absent.
Meaning
breeze, gentle wind
From Latin aura, itself taken from Greek aúra. The English noun 'aura' — an atmosphere or emanation surrounding someone — is the same word, extended in sense much later.
How the name formed
- aúraGreek
- auraLatin
- Aura
Related forms: Aura · Aura · Aura · Avra · Aura
Pronouncing Aura
OR-uh
Most American speakers say OR-uh, some AW-ruh. In Spanish, Italian and Finnish it is OW-rah, with the first syllable rhyming with 'how'. Both are correct for the same spelling.
Nicknames for Aura
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
- 1881
- Most girls named
- 2025333 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #507reached in 1882
- Change vs 2022
- +34.8%333 in 2025, from 247
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.
Aura in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Aura in Spanish — same name
- Aura in Italian — same name
- Aura in Finnish — same name
- Avra in Greek — transliteration
- Aura in Romanian — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, New York, Texas.
Auras among us
people named Aura are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 4,827 born in 2025 was named Aura
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
Fashion outlook
Aura is on its second act. Revived names age gently: the generation that wore them first is far enough away that the name feels classic rather than dated.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Aura is headed
Aura looks set to keep climbing gently, with roughly 30% 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.
Aura beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Aura in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Spelled exactly like a common English word, so it almost never needs to be spelled out or corrected in writing.
- Identical in Spanish, Italian and Finnish, which makes it portable across languages without a change of letters.
- Two syllables and four letters — short on a form, easy for a young child to write, and it fits comfortably in front of most surnames.
- A continuous presence in American records for well over a century, so it is a revival rather than a new coinage.
- It is an everyday noun, and the everyday senses come with it: an aura in the New Age sense, and in medicine the warning sensation before a migraine or seizure. Most people will simply hear the breeze, but the other meanings exist.
- The vowel split is real — OR-uh in English, OW-rah in Spanish and Italian. In a bilingual family, decide early which one is the home pronunciation.
- Over the phone it can be heard as Ora, Nora or Laura, and it sits close enough to Aurora that some people will assume it is short for that.
- There is no established nickname to fall back on, so a child who wants a different everyday name will have to invent one.
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Aura
Feminine · Greek roots · #817 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Auras are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 4,300 people named Aura are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Aura in 2025?
- Aura ranks #817 among US girl names in 2025, with 333 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Aura?
- About 1 in every 4,827 US girls born in 2025 was named Aura — 333 in all.
- Will my child share the name Aura with classmates?
- Aura will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Aura
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Romi#817 · Jenesis#816 · Livia#819 · Julietta#819 · Kelsey#814 · Quincy#814 · Keyla#821 · Nola#821
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Aura? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Aura and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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