Halimah
Feminine · “Gentle”
Ḥalīma means gentle and forbearing, and the woman who carried it first is remembered for exactly that: Halimah as-Sa'diyya was the Bedouin wet nurse who raised Muhammad in the desert, and she is one of the warmest figures in the early tradition.
How old is the name Halimah?
Halimah first appears in US birth records in 1975 — 50 years ago. The typical Halimah alive today was born around 2006, making them about 19 years old. About 600 people named Halimah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Halimah most popular?
Halimah peaked in 1989, reaching #4848 nationally. Today it ranks #5410, 562 places below that high. See the whole 1989 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From ḥalīma to Halimah
The story of Halimah
Halimah bint Abi Dhuayb of the Banu Sa'd took the infant Muhammad to raise in the desert, as was the custom among Meccan families, and the traditions about her are affectionate and detailed. Her name has been used across the Muslim world ever since, and it is particularly common in West Africa, Malaysia and Indonesia as well as in the Arab world. Halimah Yacob, president of Singapore from 2017 to 2023, is its most prominent recent bearer. American records show it thinly from the 1970s, through both immigration and African American Muslim naming, with a peak in 1989.
Meaning
Gentle, patient, forbearing
From Arabic ḥilm, forbearance or gentleness of temper — the quality of not being provoked. The feminine adjective ḥalīma means one who possesses it. The reading is settled. Al-Ḥalīm, the forbearing, is one of the ninety-nine names of God. The final h of Halimah marks the Arabic tāʾ marbūṭa and is a transliteration convention rather than a sound.
How the name formed
- ḥalīma
- Halima
- Halimah
Related forms: حليمة · Halimah · Halime · Halima · Halima
Pronouncing Halimah
hah-LEE-mah
Three syllables, stress in the middle. The initial ḥ is a pharyngeal made deep in the throat, which English replaces with an ordinary h. The final h is silent.
Nicknames for Halimah
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
- 202523 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #4848reached in 1989
- Change vs 2024
- +43.8%23 in 2025, from 16
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.
Halimah in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- حليمة in Arabic — transliteration
- Halimah in Malay — same name
- Halime in Turkish — spelling variant
- Halima in Hausa — spelling variant
- Halima in Swahili — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas.
Halimahs among us
people named Halimah are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 69,881 born in 2025 was named Halimah
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Halimah
- #5410
- Halimah on the 2025 chart
- #835
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Halimah went to 23 girls in 2025, but Halima is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 125, which makes it the 835th most-given girls’ name of the year — 4,575 places above the chart.
- Halima102
- Halimah23
About 1 girl in 12,858 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 69,881 for Halimah itself.
Spellings are grouped by a fixed rule that folds interchangeable English spellings of one sound (ck/k, ph/f, x/ks, a non-initial y for i) and keeps vowels apart, so Sean and Shawn stay separate names. It errs towards splitting: a family here is never larger than the truth. SSA national data, 2025. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Febe test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Halimah's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Febe climbed just as high around 1926, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Febe's path sketches the road Halimah is walking now.
Halimah 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
Halimah beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Halimah in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- The meaning is settled and unusually warm — forbearance rather than mere patience.
- It is recognized from Morocco to Indonesia.
- Hallie is available as an English-facing short form.
- The final h is silent and will be sounded or dropped inconsistently.
- Halima, Halimah and Halime are three transliterations of one name.
- It reads as unmistakably Muslim, which some families weigh.
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What they receive
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Halimah
Feminine · #5410 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Halimahs are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 600 people named Halimah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Halimah?
- Halimah is one of 2 recorded spellings. Halima is the more common one — 102 births in 2025 against 23 for Halimah.
- How popular is the name Halimah in 2025?
- Halimah ranks #5410 among US girl names in 2025, with 23 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Halimah?
- About 1 in every 69,881 US girls born in 2025 was named Halimah — 23 in all.
- Will my child share the name Halimah with classmates?
- Halimah will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Halimah
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Aina#5410 · Sherry#5410 · Kathia#5410 · Taj#5410 · Analicia#5410 · Divya#5410 · Sameera#5410 · Leo#5410
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Halimah? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Halimah and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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