Dinora
Feminine
Meyerbeer wrote an opera in 1859 about a Breton girl who loses her mind after a storm and wanders the countryside talking to her goat. Its most famous number is a scene in which she sings a duet with her own shadow in the moonlight. The girl is Dinorah, and the aria is still a showpiece.
How old is the name Dinora?
Dinora first appears in US birth records in 1955 — 70 years ago. The typical Dinora alive today was born around 1993, making them about 32 years old. About 800 people named Dinora are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Dinora most popular?
Dinora peaked in 1971, reaching #3266 nationally. Today it ranks #11932, 8,666 places below that high. See the whole 1971 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Dinorah to Dinora
The story of Dinora
The opera was a considerable success in its day and traveled everywhere opera traveled, which in the nineteenth century included Havana, Mexico City and Buenos Aires. The shadow song became a set piece for touring sopranos and stayed in the repertoire long after the opera itself dropped out, which is often how a name outlives the work that carried it: the title is remembered as a piece of music rather than a story. Dinora is used steadily in El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala and reached American records from there. The connection is plausible and undocumented, which is the honest position on most nineteenth-century theatrical names.
Meaningnot established
Not established
Dinorah appears to have been invented or adapted for the opera and has no established source. Some accounts connect it with Hebrew Dinah, judged; others treat it as a Breton-sounding coinage by the librettist. Neither has been demonstrated, and the American name may come from Central American use rather than from either.
How the name formed
- Dinorah
- Dinora
Related forms: Dinorah
Pronouncing Dinora
dee-NOH-rah
Three syllables, stress in the middle. dy-NOR-uh, with a long first vowel, is the English reading of the letters and is used here too.
Nicknames for Dinora
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
- 1955
- Most girls named
- 199726 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #3266reached in 1971
- Change vs 2024
- +40.0%7 in 2025, 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.
Dinora in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Dinorah in Spanish — spelling variant
Dinoras among us
people named Dinora are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 229,610 born in 2025 was named Dinora
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 Wiley test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Dinora's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Wiley climbed just as high around 1926, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Wiley's path sketches the road Dinora is walking now.
Dinora 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
Dinora beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Dinora in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Three short forms, two of which are full names in their own right.
- Three open syllables with nothing difficult in any of them.
- It is in genuine current use in several Central American countries.
- Dinorah with the h is the commoner Spanish spelling and will be offered as a correction.
- There is no documented meaning, only a documented appearance in an opera.
- The first vowel is said two ways depending on which language the reader is thinking in.
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What they receive
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Dinora
Feminine · #11932 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Dinoras 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 Dinora are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Dinora in 2025?
- Dinora ranks #11932 among US girl names in 2025, with 7 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Dinora?
- About 1 in every 229,610 US girls born in 2025 was named Dinora — 7 in all.
- Will my child share the name Dinora with classmates?
- Dinora will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Dinora
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Vina#11932 · Retta#11932 · Missouri#11932 · Iola#11932 · Eddie#11932 · Thomas#11932 · Louetta#11932 · Elvina#11932
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Dinora? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Dinora and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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