Iram
Masculine · “a legendary city”
Iram is given to both — 917 boys and 102 girls since 1880. See other names given to both
Iram is a lost city. The Quran describes Iram of the Pillars, a place of the people of Ad, destroyed for its pride, and the phrase has haunted Arabic literature and archaeology ever since — several expeditions have gone looking for it. The name also appears in Genesis as an Edomite chief, and in Urdu it is used for a garden of paradise. Its American peak is 2003.
How old is the name Iram?
Iram first appears in US birth records in 1970 — 55 years ago. The typical Iram alive today was born around 2008, making them about 17 years old. About 900 people named Iram are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Iram most popular?
Iram peaked in 2003, reaching #2847 nationally. Today it ranks #5861, 3,014 places below that high. See the whole 2003 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Iram to Iram
The story of Iram
The Quranic passage gave Iram a permanent place in Arabic and Persian imagination, and medieval writers elaborated it into an account of a garden built to rival paradise. That literary tradition is where the Urdu meaning comes from: the gardens of Iram became a stock image for beauty, and the word acquired the sense of a paradisal garden in its own right. Modern archaeology has repeatedly connected the story to Ubar in Oman, a caravan site excavated in the 1990s, though the identification is contested. As a personal name Iram is used in Pakistan and northern India on both sexes, and it reached American records with South Asian migration.
Meaningscholars disagree
a legendary city; in Urdu use, a garden of paradise
The Quranic Iram dhat al-Imad, Iram of the Pillars, appears in Surat al-Fajr as a place whose like was never built. Its own etymology is not established, and whether it names a city, a tribe or a region has been argued since the earliest commentators. In Urdu and Persian poetic usage Iram came to mean a paradisal garden, by association with the legendary gardens of Iram, and that is the sense most Urdu-speaking families have in mind. Hebrew Iram, a chief of Edom in Genesis 36, is a separate and unconnected name.
How the name formed
- Iram
- Iram
Related forms: Iram · Iram · Eram · Iram
Pronouncing Iram
ih-RAM
Two syllables, with the stress at the end in Arabic and Urdu and the first vowel short. English speakers often say EYE-ram with the vowel of eye, or EAR-um; the end-stressed version is the one used where the name is common.
Nicknames for Iram
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
- 1970
- Most boys named
- 202438 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #2847reached in 2003
- Change vs 2024
- −60.5%15 in 2025, from 38
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.
Iram in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Iram in Arabic — same name
- Iram in Urdu — same name
- Eram in Persian — spelling variant
- Iram in Hebrew — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, California, Arizona.
Irams among us
people named Iram are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 113,872 born in 2025 was named Iram
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 Reymond test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Iram's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Reymond climbed just as high around 1962, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Reymond's path sketches the road Iram is walking now.
Iram 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
Iram beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Iram in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- It is short, spellable and made only of sounds English already has.
- The story behind it is memorable and can be told in one sentence.
- It is used on both sexes in South Asia, which suits families who do not want a sex-marked name.
- English speakers routinely put the stress on the wrong syllable.
- The meaning depends on which tradition is being read — Quranic, Urdu poetic or Hebrew.
- It is very close to Ira and Imran in sound and will be misheard as either.
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What they receive
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Iram
Masculine · #5861 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Irams are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 900 people named Iram are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Iram in 2025?
- Iram ranks #5861 among US boy names in 2025, with 15 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Iram?
- About 1 in every 113,872 US boys born in 2025 was named Iram — 15 in all.
- Will my child share the name Iram with classmates?
- Iram will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Iram
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Eber#5861 · Wilton#5861 · Ruby#5861 · Stacy#5861 · Garner#5861 · Caldwell#5861 · Severin#5861 · Newton#5861
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Iram? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Iram and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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