Irine
Feminine · “peace”
Irine is a respelling of a Greek name meaning peace, and the most formidable person to carry it took a title in the masculine. The Byzantine empress Irene ruled in her own right at the end of the eighth century, and the documents of her reign call her not empress but emperor, using the male form, because there was no established way for a woman to hold the office alone.
How old is the name Irine?
Irine first appears in US birth records in 1895 — 130 years ago. The typical Irine alive today was born around 1924, making them about 101 years old. About 300 people named Irine are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Irine most popular?
Irine peaked in 1910, reaching #753 nationally. See the whole 1910 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From The Greek word for peace, used as a name to Irine
The story of Irine
She became regent for her young son, and when he grew up and tried to rule she had him blinded and took the throne herself. The chroniclers who record this were not sympathetic to her, and the details may be worse than they were, but nobody disputes that she ruled alone for five years and that the imperial documents of the period use the masculine title. That grammatical choice is the interesting part: the Byzantine state had a word for the emperor's wife and no word for a woman holding the office in her own right, so the clerks used the men's word rather than invent one. Charlemagne's advisers, hearing that the eastern throne was vacant because a woman was on it, used that as part of their justification for crowning him emperor in the west.
Meaning
peace
The Greek word for peace, used as a personal name from antiquity, and the reading is settled and uncomplicated. It was also the name of a minor goddess, one of a group personifying good order, and it became a Christian name early because peace was a word the church used heavily. The English respellings change nothing about the sense.
How the name formed
- The Greek word for peace, used as a name
- A minor goddess and then an early Christian name
- Irene across the Orthodox and Catholic worlds
- Irine as an English respelling
Related forms: Eirene · Irina · Irene · Irene
Pronouncing Irine
eye-REEN
Two syllables in American use with the stress at the back. British English gives it three, eye-REE-nee, closer to the Greek, and the two are different enough that a family should decide which they mean.
Nicknames for Irine
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
- 1895
- Most girls named
- 192266 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #753reached in 1910
- Change vs 1970
- 0.0%5 in 1978, 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.
Irine in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Eirene in Greek — same name
- Irina in Russian — related form
- Irene in Italian — spelling variant
- Irene in Spanish — spelling variant
Irines among us
people named Irine 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
Irine 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
- The meaning is short, clear and about as good as a meaning gets.
- It is used across Greek, Russian, Italian and Spanish families with small changes.
- Rene and Ira are two very different short forms and both stand alone.
- Irene is the standard spelling and this one will be corrected into it constantly.
- The number of syllables differs between American and British English.
- It is firmly of an earlier generation in American records.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Irine
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Irines are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 300 people named Irine are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Irine in 2025?
- Irine is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Irine with classmates?
- Irine will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More I names
The most-given names starting with I, all years combined.
Isabella#7 · Irene#651 · Ida#1120 · Isabel#176 · Isabelle#166 · Iris#61 · Ivy#39 · Irma#3167
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Irine? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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