Kamara
Feminine
Kamara is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 2,066 girls against 26 boys since 1880.
Kamara is a major West African surname — one of the great Mande family names, carried by hundreds of thousands of people in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Mali.
How old is the name Kamara?
Kamara first appears in US birth records in 1965 — 60 years ago. The typical Kamara alive today was born around 2007, making them about 18 years old. About 2,000 people named Kamara are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Kamara most popular?
Kamara peaked in 2007, reaching #2231 nationally. Today it ranks #3903, 1,672 places below that high. See the whole 2007 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
Origin, sound and short forms
Our story of Kamara
Ours, offered as ours. In the Mande world a surname is not merely a family label — it places a person in a clan with traditional occupations, joking relationships with other clans, and obligations that survive into modern life. Kamara is one of the oldest of them, associated in several traditions with smithing, which in West Africa was a craft with real ritual weight. The American given name almost certainly reached the sound another way, and the clan is worth knowing about regardless.
Meaningnot established
Not established
No settled derivation. Kamara is a Mande clan name of considerable antiquity, associated with blacksmiths in some traditions; proposals connecting it to Arabic qamar, the moon, are not supported. Its use as an American given name is separate from the West African surname.
Pronouncing Kamara
kah-MAR-ah
Three syllables with the stress in the middle. Some families say KAM-ah-rah.
Nicknames for Kamara
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
- 1965
- Most girls named
- 200788 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #2231reached in 2007
- Change vs 2024
- −15.9%37 in 2025, from 44
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.
Kamara in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Kamara in Mandinka — same name
- Kamaria in Swahili — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Florida, Ohio.
Kamaras among us
people named Kamara are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 43,440 born in 2025 was named Kamara
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Kamara
- #3903
- Kamara on the 2025 chart
- #906
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Kamara went to 37 girls in 2025, but Camara and Kamarah are the same name said out loud. Together the 3 spellings went to 54, which makes it the 906th most-given girls’ name of the year — 2,997 places above the chart.
- Kamara37
- Camara12
- Kamarah5
About 1 girl in 29,764 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 43,440 for Kamara 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 Sherica test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Kamara's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Sherica climbed just as high around 1981, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Sherica's path sketches the road Kamara is walking now.
Kamara 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
Where Kamara is headed
Kamara should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
Medium confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Kamara beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Kamara in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Mara is a complete short form with lives in several languages.
- A very large and genuinely ancient West African clan stands behind the sound.
- Open vowels make it easy to say in most languages.
- The stress is unsettled between the first and second syllables.
- It is a surname to a great many people, who will read it as one.
- The moon reading circulated in name lists is not supported.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Kamara
Feminine · #3903 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Kamaras are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 2,000 people named Kamara are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Kamara?
- Kamara is the most-used spelling in US records — 37 of the 54 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Camara and Kamarah.
- How popular is the name Kamara in 2025?
- Kamara ranks #3903 among US girl names in 2025, with 37 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Kamara?
- About 1 in every 43,440 US girls born in 2025 was named Kamara — 37 in all.
- Will my child share the name Kamara with classmates?
- Kamara will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Kamara
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Kay#3903 · Sonja#3903 · Truth#3903 · Gisela#3903 · Kaylene#3903 · Bronwyn#3903 · Cristal#3903 · Georgianna#3903
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Kamara? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Kamara and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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