Azure
Feminine · “the deep blue of lapis lazuli”
Azure is given to both — 1,675 girls and 452 boys since 1880. See other names given to both
Azure was once a place. The word runs back through French azur and Latin lazur to Persian lazhward, the name of the mountain district in Badakhshan where the world's lapis lazuli was mined, and it lost its first letter along the way because French speakers mistook the l for their own article.
How old is the name Azure?
Azure first appears in US birth records in 1975 — 50 years ago. The typical Azure alive today was born around 1999, making them about 26 years old. About 1,600 people named Azure are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Azure most popular?
Azure peaked in 1975, reaching #1005 nationally. Today it ranks #6325, 5,320 places below that high. See the whole 1975 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From lazhward to Azure
The story of Azure
For six thousand years the only source of lapis lazuli known to the Mediterranean and to Asia was a set of mines in the Sar-e-Sang valley in Badakhshan, and the stone traveled from there to Egypt, Mesopotamia, Rome and eventually to European painters, for whom ground lapis was ultramarine, the most expensive pigment in existence. The word traveled with the stone, through Persian and Arabic into Latin and then into French, English and Spanish. Its use as an English girl's name belongs to the color-word wave of the mid-twentieth century, alongside Amber, Jade, Scarlet and Hazel, and its best year on record is 1975. The name is a mineral deposit in Afghanistan, four languages, and a spelling accident.
Meaning
the deep blue of lapis lazuli
From Old French azur, from Medieval Latin lazur, from Arabic lazaward, from Persian lazhward, ultimately from the place name Lajward in what is now Afghanistan. The initial l was lost by rebracketing: l'azur was heard as the article plus the noun, the same process that turned a napron into an apron and a nadder into an adder. In heraldry azure is the formal term for blue.
How the name formed
- lazhward
- lazaward
- lazur
- azur
- azure
Related forms: Azur · Azul · Azzurra · Lazhward
Pronouncing Azure
AZH-ur
Two syllables, stress on the first, with the middle consonant as the zh of measure. A common alternative is uh-ZHOOR with the stress at the end, which is closer to the French; both are standard.
Nicknames for Azure
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
- 1975
- Most girls named
- 1975121 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1005reached in 1975
- Change vs 2024
- −35.7%18 in 2025, from 28
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.
Azure in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Azur in French — same name
- Azul in Spanish — related form
- Azzurra in Italian — related form
- Lazhward in Persian — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas.
Azures among us
people named Azure are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 89,293 born in 2025 was named Azure
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 Bernie test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Azure's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Bernie climbed just as high around 1908, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Bernie's path sketches the road Azure is walking now.
Azure 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
Azure beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Azure in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A real English word with a documented six-thousand-year trade history behind it.
- The color meaning is instantly clear without any explanation.
- Unisex in practice, and rare enough in either direction to stay distinctive.
- Since 2010 the word has also been the name of a large cloud computing platform.
- Two pronunciations compete, AZH-ur and uh-ZHOOR, and neither is wrong.
- Azura, Azuree and Azul are all nearby and will be substituted.
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What they receive
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Azure
Feminine · #6325 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Azures are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,600 people named Azure are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Azure in 2025?
- Azure ranks #6325 among US girl names in 2025, with 18 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Azure?
- About 1 in every 89,293 US girls born in 2025 was named Azure — 18 in all.
- Will my child share the name Azure with classmates?
- Azure will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Azure
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Kaye#6325 · Doria#6325 · Karolyn#6325 · Rosaleen#6325 · Roni#6325 · Darian#6325 · Svetlana#6325 · Fanny#6325
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Azure? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Azure and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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