Jamara
Feminine · “bitter”
Jamara is given to both — 933 girls and 45 boys since 1880. See other names given to both
Mara is one of the few names in the Hebrew Bible that someone chooses for herself, and she chooses it in grief. Naomi comes home after losing her husband and both sons and tells her neighbors not to call her Naomi, which means pleasant, but Mara, which means bitter. Jamara puts a syllable in front of that word, and most families using it have Tamara in mind rather than Ruth.
How old is the name Jamara?
Jamara first appears in US birth records in 1966 — 59 years ago. The typical Jamara alive today was born around 1998, making them about 27 years old. About 900 people named Jamara are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Jamara most popular?
Jamara peaked in 1994, reaching #3302 nationally. Today it ranks #13208, 9,906 places below that high. See the whole 1994 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Mara to Jamara
The story of Jamara
American naming has used Ja- as a free front element for over half a century, attaching it to bases of any origin. Tamara arrived from Russian use in the mid-twentieth century and became widely given; Mara has its own quiet history through the Bible and through Italian and Hungarian use. Jamara appears in the record from the 1960s and could have come from any of those directions. It is given overwhelmingly to daughters and occasionally to sons, which follows from the fact that the prefix carries no signal either way.
Meaningscholars disagree
bitter, if the base is Mara
Mara is the Hebrew word for bitter, and the book of Ruth uses it as a name in one memorable line. But this name may equally be Tamara with a different first consonant — Tamara is Hebrew for a date palm — or a construction from the Ja- prefix and a sound. The record shows all three patterns active in the same decades.
How the name formed
- Mara
- Jamara
Related forms: Mara · Mara
Pronouncing Jamara
juh-MAR-uh
Three syllables, stress in the middle. Some families say JAM-uh-ruh with the weight in front; the middle-stress version is much the commoner.
Nicknames for Jamara
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
- 1966
- Most girls named
- 200137 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #3302reached in 1994
- Change vs 2024
- −14.3%6 in 2025, from 7
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.
Jamara in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Mara in Hebrew — related form
- Mara in Italian — related form
Jamaras among us
people named Jamara are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 267,878 born in 2025 was named Jamara
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 Nickey test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Jamara's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Nickey climbed just as high around 1957, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Nickey's path sketches the road Jamara is walking now.
Jamara 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
Jamara beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Jamara in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- It shortens to a complete standing name rather than to a fragment.
- Three open syllables that sit well after almost any surname.
- It works for a child of either sex in the record, though nearly all are girls.
- Jamarah, Jemara and Tamara all sit close by and will be written instead.
- If the Mara reading is taken, the meaning is bitter, which some families would rather know in advance.
- The stress placement is unsettled, so the name arrives two ways.
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What they receive
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Jamara
Feminine · #13208 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Jamaras 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 Jamara are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Jamara in 2025?
- Jamara ranks #13208 among US girl names in 2025, with 6 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Jamara?
- About 1 in every 267,878 US girls born in 2025 was named Jamara — 6 in all.
- Will my child share the name Jamara with classmates?
- Jamara will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Jamara
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
John#13208 · Vinnie#13208 · Margery#13208 · Jossie#13208 · Tressa#13208 · Erie#13208 · Bernadine#13208 · Euna#13208
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Jamara? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Jamara and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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