Damara
Feminine · “Greek damalis”
Damaris is named once in the Bible, in a single sentence, and then never mentioned again. She is one of two people who believed Paul at the Areopagus in Athens, and the only woman named in the account of the most intellectual audience he ever addressed.
How old is the name Damara?
Damara first appears in US birth records in 1962 — 63 years ago. The typical Damara alive today was born around 1997, making them about 28 years old. About 1,000 people named Damara are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Damara most popular?
Damara peaked in 1980, reaching #3002 nationally. Today it ranks #9457, 6,455 places below that high. See the whole 1980 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From damalis to Damara
The story of Damara
Acts 17 puts Paul in Athens, arguing in the marketplace and then invited to speak at the Areopagus, the council hill, to an audience described as spending its time on nothing but hearing something new. He quotes Greek poetry at them rather than scripture, and the response is mixed: some mock, some defer the question, and a few believe. Luke names two of them, Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman called Damaris, and says nothing further about either. The brevity is the interesting part. Damaris is one of a set of women named once in Acts and the letters, alongside Lydia, Priscilla, Phoebe and Junia, whose presence in the record is a single line and whose names survived anyway. Dionysius the Areopagite later acquired an entire body of theological writing falsely attributed to him. Damaris got nothing but her name.
Meaningscholars disagree
Greek damalis, a heifer
Damara is most likely a variant of Damaris, a Greek name usually connected to damalis, a young cow or heifer, or to a word for a wife. Neither derivation is secure. A separate and unrelated source is possible: Damara is the name of a people and a region in Namibia. The American peak is 1980.
How the name formed
- damalis
- Damaris
- Damara
Related forms: Damaris · Damaris
Pronouncing Damara
duh-MAR-ah
Three syllables, stress on the second. Damara and Damaris differ in the final syllable only, which is why they are often confused.
Nicknames for Damara
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
- 1962
- Most girls named
- 200448 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #3002reached in 1980
- Change vs 2023
- −23.1%10 in 2025, from 13
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.
Damara in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Damaris in English — related form
- Damaris in Spanish — related form
Damaras among us
people named Damara are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 160,727 born in 2025 was named Damara
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 Soraida test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Damara's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Soraida climbed just as high around 1964, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Soraida's path sketches the road Damara is walking now.
Damara 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
Damara beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Damara in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Mara works as a short form and is a name in its own right.
- Three syllables with clear middle stress.
- The vowels are open and easy in English.
- Damaris is the commoner and better documented form.
- The derivation from a word for a heifer is not certain.
- A Namibian people and region share the spelling.
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What they receive
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Damara
Feminine · #9457 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Damaras are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,000 people named Damara are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Damara in 2025?
- Damara ranks #9457 among US girl names in 2025, with 10 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Damara?
- About 1 in every 160,727 US girls born in 2025 was named Damara — 10 in all.
- Will my child share the name Damara with classmates?
- Damara will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Damara
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Leta#9457 · Inga#9457 · Delphia#9457 · Cammie#9457 · Lisandra#9457 · Amee#9457 · Venecia#9457 · Annetta#9457
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Damara? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Damara and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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