Ima
Feminine · “mother”
A Texas governor named his daughter Ima in the 1880s, after a heroine in a poem his brother had written. She spent ninety years in Texas building museums and hospitals and never used a middle initial. The story that she had a sister called Ura is entirely false and has been repeated for a century anyway.
How old is the name Ima?
Ima first appears in US birth records in 1886 — 139 years ago. The typical Ima alive today was born around 1928, making them about 97 years old. About 1,500 people named Ima are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Ima most popular?
Ima peaked in 1894, reaching #429 nationally. Today it ranks #11932, 11,503 places below that high. See the whole 1894 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
Origin, sound and short forms
The story of Ima
James Hogg was governor of Texas in the 1890s, and his daughter's name came from an epic poem written by his older brother about the Civil War. She hated it. She also became one of the most consequential private citizens in the state — a collector who gave her house and its contents to a museum, a founder of the Houston Symphony, and the person behind the first child guidance clinic in the city. The sister story attached itself in her lifetime and would not come off; she was asked about it constantly and denied it constantly. The name in American records rises exactly while her father was in office and falls afterwards, which is what a political name does.
Meaningscholars disagree
mother, in Hebrew
The American name is taken from a character in a nineteenth-century poem and has no etymology of its own. Separately, ima is the ordinary Hebrew word for mother, used by every Israeli child, and the Japanese word for now. Neither is the source of the American entries, and both are real.
Pronouncing Ima
EYE-muh
Two syllables, stress on the first, with a long i. EE-mah is the Hebrew saying and is used in Jewish families for the ordinary word rather than the name.
Nicknames for Ima
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
- 1886
- Most girls named
- 1930228 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #429reached in 1894
- Change vs 2018
- −12.5%7 in 2025, from 8
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.
Ima in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Ima in Hebrew — related form
Imas among us
people named Ima are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 229,610 born in 2025 was named Ima
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
Fashion outlook
Ima 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
Ima beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Ima in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Three letters and two syllables, easy to say and impossible to misspell.
- It has a documented American bearer whose life is worth looking up.
- It is genuinely rare, so a child will almost certainly never meet another.
- It reads as the start of a sentence — I'm a — and people will make the joke.
- It is strongly represented among the very oldest generations and reads clearly as of that time.
- In Hebrew it is the word for mother, which will be noticed in Jewish and Israeli company.
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What they receive
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Ima
Feminine · #11932 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Imas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,500 people named Ima are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Ima in 2025?
- Ima ranks #11932 among US girl names in 2025, with 7 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Ima?
- About 1 in every 229,610 US girls born in 2025 was named Ima — 7 in all.
- Will my child share the name Ima with classmates?
- Ima will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Ima
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 Ima? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Ima and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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