Korra
Feminine · “maiden”
Two syllables, five letters, and no ambiguity about how to say it — Korra lands the way Cora and Nora land, with the doubled r pulling the stress firmly onto the front. It sits at the meeting point of an old name family and a recent one: the Cora–Kora line, which reaches back to Greek, and the animated series that put this exact spelling in front of a generation of American children. Familiar in sound, uncommon on paper.
How old is the name Korra?
Korra first appears in US birth records in 1999 — 26 years ago. The typical Korra is a kid of about 5 — this name's wave is very recent. About 2,100 people named Korra are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Korra most popular?
Korra peaked in 2021, reaching #1058 nationally. Today it ranks #1417, 359 places below that high. See the whole 2021 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Korē to Korra
The story of Korra
The Cora side of the story is old: Greek korē meant 'maiden', and Cora reached English readers most memorably through James Fenimore Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans in 1826, after which it spread widely in the nineteenth century. Kora and Korra followed as K-spellings, part of a long American habit of swapping C for K. The doubled-r spelling then acquired a life of its own when Nickelodeon's animated sequel to Avatar: The Last Airbender, aired in the early 2010s, named its central character Korra — which is why almost everyone carrying the name today is still a child. It is genuinely a name with two roads into it, one ancient and one very recent.
Meaningscholars disagree
'maiden', if read as a K-spelling of Cora — otherwise not established
Two readings compete honestly. Read as a variant of Cora and Kora, it goes back to Greek korē, 'maiden' or 'girl', a title used for Persephone. Read as its own modern name — which is how the animated series that carries this spelling presents it — it has no documented meaning at all. Both are defensible, and neither has pushed the other out.
How the name formed
- Korē
- Cora
- Kora
- Korra
Related forms: Korē · Cora · Kora · Kora · Cora
Pronouncing Korra
KOR-uh
Stress on the first syllable. In most American speech it is indistinguishable from Cora, which is convenient for saying and inconvenient for spelling.
Nicknames for Korra
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
- 1999
- Most girls named
- 2021238 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1058reached in 2021
- Change vs 2024
- −24.3%153 in 2025, from 202
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.
Korra in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Korē in Greek — related form
- Cora in English — related form
- Kora in German — spelling variant
- Kora in Polish — spelling variant
- Cora in Italian — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Florida.
Korras among us
people named Korra are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 10,505 born in 2025 was named Korra
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Korra
- #1417
- Korra on the 2025 chart
- #89
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Korra went to 153 girls in 2025, but Cora, Kora 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 — 1,328 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 10,505 for Korra 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 Kellye test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Korra's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Kellye climbed just as high around 1987, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Kellye's path sketches the road Korra is walking now.
Korra 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 Korra is headed
Korra 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.
Korra beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Korra 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 first sight for English speakers — two syllables, no silent letters, no competing pronunciations.
- Sits inside the well-established Cora and Kora family, so the sound is already familiar in English, German, Italian and Polish.
- Short enough to need no nickname, but Kora, Kori and Korrie are all available and all used elsewhere as names in their own right.
- Uncommon in classrooms without sounding invented, since the rhythm matches names people already know.
- Most people who recognize this exact spelling will think of the animated series first. That is a warm association for many families, but it is specific, and it ties the name to one cultural moment more tightly than Cora or Kora are tied to anything.
- Cora, Kora and Korra all sound alike, so this spelling will be spelled out over the phone for life. Two Rs is an easy correction, just a frequent one.
- Nearly everyone carrying the name is young, so there are almost no adult Korras to point to yet — the name has no established grown-up register in English, though its sound family does.
Nobody names a baby alone.
Put Korra to the vote.
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What they receive
Someone added a name to your list
Korra
Feminine · #1417 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Korras are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 2,100 people named Korra are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Korra?
- Korra is one of 4 recorded spellings. Cora is the more common one — 2,428 births in 2025 against 153 for Korra.
- How popular is the name Korra in 2025?
- Korra ranks #1417 among US girl names in 2025, with 153 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Korra?
- About 1 in every 10,505 US girls born in 2025 was named Korra — 153 in all.
- Will my child share the name Korra with classmates?
- Korra will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Korra
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Ariadna#1417 · Georgiana#1417 · Kailey#1417 · Haylee#1417 · Marlie#1417 · Addyson#1413 · Emryn#1413 · Aida#1413
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Korra? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Korra and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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