Darrah
Feminine · “oak”
Darrah is one of the English spellings of an Irish name built on the word for an oak. It is also, in American records, a spelling that parents reach for when they want Sarah with a different front. The record does not separate the two, and the page cannot either.
How old is the name Darrah?
Darrah first appears in US birth records in 1942 — 83 years ago. The typical Darrah alive today was born around 1991, making them about 34 years old. About 800 people named Darrah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Darrah most popular?
Darrah peaked in 1978, reaching #3283 nationally. See the whole 1978 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From dair to Darrah
The story of Darrah
Dara comes from the Irish dair, an oak, and its best-documented carrier is Mac Dara, a saint of the Connemara coast. His island off Carna still has a small stone church standing on it, and fishing boats passing the island lowered their sails three times in salute, a courtesy kept well into living memory. The name traveled as a surname, in the forms Mac Dara and Ó Dara, before it came back around into use as a first name in Ireland and then abroad. The -ah ending on this spelling is an American habit rather than an Irish one, which is part of why the name arrives here looking like a cousin of Sarah.
Meaningscholars disagree
oak, if the Irish name is the source
Two readings compete and both are live. If the name is the Irish one, dair is an oak and the meaning is settled. If it is an American respelling built on the shape of Sarah and Farrah, the oak has nothing to do with it. Nothing in the record tells one child from the other.
How the name formed
- dair
- Mac Dara
- Dara
- Darragh
- Darrah
Related forms: Darragh · Dara
Pronouncing Darrah
DAR-uh
Stress on the first syllable and the final h silent. In Irish the name runs closer to DAH-ra, with a lighter first vowel.
Nicknames for Darrah
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
- 1942
- Most girls named
- 200442 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #3283reached in 1978
- Change vs 2018
- −50.0%5 in 2020, from 10
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.
Darrah in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Darragh in Irish — spelling variant
- Dara in Irish — same name
Darrahs among us
people named Darrah 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
Darrah 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, said as it looks, and has no sound that gives an English speaker trouble.
- An oak is a sturdy thing to be named after and a documented meaning, if the Irish road is the one your family takes.
- It sits close to Sarah and Farrah in sound, so it arrives new without arriving strange.
- In Ireland the spelling Darragh goes mostly to boys, so the name reads differently there than it does here.
- The final h will be dropped, doubled or moved by people writing the name down from speech.
- Because two origins are genuinely possible, the meaning question has two answers, which is honest but not tidy.
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Darrah
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Darrahs are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 800 people named Darrah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Darrah in 2025?
- Darrah is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Darrah with classmates?
- Darrah will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More D names
The most-given names starting with D, all years combined.
Dorothy#421 · Donna#1962 · Deborah#862 · Debra#4460 · Diane#2607 · Doris#2895 · Denise#1673 · Danielle#549
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Darrah? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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