Burma
Feminine
Burma is a place name that became a woman's name in America, which happened to a number of far-off places in the first half of the last century. What is unusual here is that the name arrived through two entirely separate routes, and one of them was a roadside advertisement.
How old is the name Burma?
Burma first appears in US birth records in 1896 — 129 years ago. The typical Burma alive today was born around 1938, making them about 87 years old. About 400 people named Burma are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Burma most popular?
Burma peaked in 1941, reaching #1065 nationally. See the whole 1941 chart.
Where it comes from
Origin, sound and short forms
The story of Burma
Two things put the word in front of Americans. The first was a shaving cream. Burma-Shave bought narrow strips of farmland along the highways and planted sequences of small red signs, each carrying one line of a rhyme that a driver read a few seconds at a time — thousands of sets of them across the country for decades, the first advertising campaign that people looked forward to. The second was a war. When Japanese forces closed the Chinese coast, supplies to China had to go over the mountains on a hand-cut road from Burma, built by hundreds of thousands of laborers and fought over for years, and it was in every newspaper and newsreel in America. A word heard that often stops being foreign, and some parents took it.
Meaning
From the country now called Myanmar
The name is the English form of the country's older name, taken from the majority people there. The country changed its official name decades ago and which version a speaker uses is now a political statement in itself, though it was not when American children were being given it.
Pronouncing Burma
BUR-muh
Two syllables, stress at the front. The country's own pronunciation is closer to bah-MAH, which English never adopted.
Nicknames for Burma
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
- 1896
- Most girls named
- 194147 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1065reached in 1941
- Change vs 1964
- +20.0%6 in 1965, 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.
Burmas among us
people named Burma are estimated to be alive in the US today
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Burma sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- It is short, easy and completely unambiguous in the mouth.
- It is a real place with real history behind it rather than an invented sound.
- Almost nobody carries it, which makes it genuinely distinctive.
- The country is now generally called Myanmar, and the older name carries political weight it did not carry when the name was given.
- Most Americans will hear the shaving cream before they hear the country.
- It belongs firmly to one stretch of the last century and has never come back.
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Burma
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Burmas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 400 people named Burma are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Burma in 2025?
- Burma is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Burma with classmates?
- Burma will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More B names
The most-given names starting with B, all years combined.
Barbara#968 · Betty#1113 · Brenda#1525 · Beverly#1016 · Brittany#928 · Bonnie#396 · Brianna#222 · Bertha#4546
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Burma? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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