Kora
Feminine · “maiden”
Kora is the K-spelled cousin of Cora, and behind both stands the Greek korē, "maiden" — the word classicists still use for the standing marble girls of archaic Greek sculpture. It is two clean syllables that sit in the same sound-family as Nora, Flora and Dora, names English speakers have been saying comfortably for centuries. Its own wave in the United States is recent, so most Koras are children, and the spelling still looks fresh on a class list.
How old is the name Kora?
Kora first appears in US birth records in 1942 — 83 years ago. The typical Kora is a kid of about 7 — this name's wave is very recent. About 9,500 people named Kora are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Kora most popular?
Kora peaked in 2022, reaching #465 nationally. Today it ranks #490, 25 places below that high. See the whole 2022 chart.
Where it comes from
From Korē to Kora
The story of Kora
The line begins with the Greek korē, a plain word for a young woman that also served as a name for Persephone in cult and myth. Cora surfaced as an English given name in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and got a strong push from literature: James Fenimore Cooper named a heroine Cora Munro in The Last of the Mohicans, published in 1826, and the name spread widely through the English-speaking world afterwards. The K spelling is the newer development, part of a broad twentieth- and twenty-first-century habit of swapping hard C for K, and it is the form that has grown in American records while Cora kept its own separate life. Both spellings point back to the same short Greek word.
Meaning
maiden, girl
The root is Greek korē, "maiden" — also a title of Persephone in Greek religion. Kora is a modern spelling of Cora rather than a separate name; the meaning travels with it.
How the name formed
- Korē
- Cora
- Kora
Related forms: Cora · Kore · Cora · Kora · Coralie · Corinna
Pronouncing Kora
KOR-uh
Stress on the first syllable, rhyming with Nora and Dora. Some speakers say KOH-ruh with a rounder first vowel; both are accepted and neither causes confusion.
Nicknames for Kora
High
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
- 1942
- Most girls named
- 2022682 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #465reached in 2022
- Change vs 2024
- −3.5%603 in 2025, from 625
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.
Kora in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Cora in English — spelling variant
- Kore in Greek — transliteration
- Cora in Italian — same name
- Kora in German — same name
- Coralie in French — related form
- Corinna in English — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, California, Florida.
Koras among us
people named Kora are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 2,665 born in 2025 was named Kora
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Kora
- #490
- Kora on the 2025 chart
- #89
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Kora went to 603 girls in 2025, but Cora, Korra and Korah are the same name said out loud. Together the 7 spellings went to 3,241, which makes it the 89th most-given girls’ name of the year — 401 places above the chart.
and 3 rarer spellings.
About 1 girl in 496 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 2,665 for Kora 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 Tess test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Kora's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Tess climbed just as high around 1992, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Tess's path sketches the road Kora is walking now.
Kora 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 Kora is headed
Kora should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
High 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.
Kora beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Kora in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Reads correctly on sight for English speakers — four letters, two syllables, no silent letters or ambiguous vowels.
- Sits in a long-established sound-family with Cora, Nora, Dora and Flora, so it is familiar to the ear even when the spelling is new to someone.
- The Greek root korē is documented and easy to explain in a sentence, which is more than many short names can offer.
- Works in German, Italian and Polish spelling conventions without alteration, useful in a bilingual family.
- Cora is the older and better-known spelling, so expect "is that with a C or a K?" at doctors' offices, coffee counters and school forms for life. Worth deciding early which spelling you will correct and which you will let slide.
- Its growth in the US is recent, so most Koras are children rather than adults. That means a child is unlikely to share the name with a classmate, but also that the name has no long American track record to lean on.
- The word kora also names a West African 21-string harp-lute and, in Tibetan Buddhism, the practice of walking a circuit around a sacred site. Neither is a problem — just two other things the word means in the world.
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What they receive
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Kora
Feminine · #490 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Koras are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 9,500 people named Kora are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Kora?
- Kora is one of 4 recorded spellings. Cora is the more common one — 2,428 births in 2025 against 603 for Kora.
- How popular is the name Kora in 2025?
- Kora ranks #490 among US girl names in 2025, with 603 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Kora?
- About 1 in every 2,665 US girls born in 2025 was named Kora — 603 in all.
- Will my child share the name Kora with classmates?
- Kora will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Kora
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Amirah#490 · Miracle#490 · Aubree#489 · Brooklynn#488 · Amanda#493 · Cameron#487 · Arlette#494 · Aniyah#485
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Kora? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Kora and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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