Laramie
Feminine · “From the Wyoming place name”
Laramie is given to both — 1,813 girls and 1,192 boys since 1880. See Laramie as a boy nameSee other names given to both
Laramie comes off the map of the American West — a river, a fort, a mountain range and a Wyoming town, all carrying the name of one French-Canadian fur trapper. In the mouth it is three easy syllables with the stress up front, ending in the same open -ie that Sadie and Rosie share. Western films and television carried it out of geography and into use as a first name.
How old is the name Laramie?
Laramie first appears in US birth records in 1954 — 71 years ago. The typical Laramie is a kid of about 5 — this name's wave is very recent. About 1,800 people named Laramie are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Laramie most popular?
Laramie peaked in 2025, reaching #1085 nationally. Today it ranks #1085, exactly where it peaked. See the whole 2025 chart.
Where it comes from
From ramée (French: leafy branch, bower) to Laramie
The story of Laramie
Jacques La Ramée was a French-Canadian fur trapper working the plains and mountains of what is now southeastern Wyoming in the early nineteenth century; he disappeared in the 1820s, and the river he had trapped kept his name. From the river came Fort Laramie on the Oregon Trail, the Laramie Mountains, and the town of Laramie itself. Mid-twentieth-century Westerns — a James Stewart film built around the place name, and an NBC series simply called Laramie — put the word in front of very large audiences, and American parents began using it for children. The French original, La Ramée, was a surname built from ramée, a leafy bough.
Meaning
From the Wyoming place name, itself from the surname of the trapper Jacques La Ramée; French la ramée means 'the leafy branch' or 'the bower'
The chain from man to river to town to given name is well documented. The surname element is the French ramée, a leafy bough or an arbour made of branches — a common surname source in old France and New France.
How the name formed
- raméeFrench: leafy branch, bower
- La RaméeFrench surname
- LaramieWyoming river, fort and town
- Laramiegiven name
Related forms: La Ramée
Pronouncing Laramie
LAIR-uh-mee
Three syllables, stress on the first. Some speakers say LAR-uh-mee with the vowel of 'far'; both are heard for the Wyoming town, and neither needs correcting.
Nicknames for Laramie
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
- 1954
- Most girls named
- 2024226 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1085reached in 2025
- Change vs 2024
- −1.8%222 in 2025, from 226
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.
Laramie in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- La Ramée in French — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, Oklahoma, Nebraska.
Laramies among us
people named Laramie are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 7,240 born in 2025 was named Laramie
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 Natali test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Laramie's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Natali climbed just as high around 2005, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Natali's path sketches the road Laramie is walking now.
Laramie is climbing fast right now. Steep climbs tend to come with steep descents — the quicker a name arrives, the more firmly it belongs to its moment.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Laramie is headed
Laramie is on a steep climb — if the curve holds, 2030 could see around 104% more babies given the name than today. Its history is short or jumpy, though, so read this as a sketch rather than a promise.
Low 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.
Laramie beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Laramie in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- The spelling is fixed by the map — anyone who has seen a US highway sign or a Western can write it after hearing it once.
- Reads exactly as it looks in English, with no silent letters and no competing pronunciations that change the syllables.
- Yields ready short forms — Lara, Rae, Remi — each of which already works as a name on its own.
- Rare enough that a child is unlikely to share it with a classmate, while the word itself is familiar to most American ears.
- The Laramie Project, the widely staged and widely taught play about the 1998 murder of Matthew Shepard in Laramie, Wyoming, means the word carries that association for many people, particularly in theater and school settings.
- Expect the question 'like the town?' for life, and occasional assumptions about a Wyoming connection the family may not have.
- Its use as a given name is recent, so nearly every Laramie right now is a child. There is no generation of adult bearers yet to make it feel ordinary — that arrives with time.
- In speech it can be misheard as Laurie or Laura Lee, so a clear first syllable helps on the phone.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
Someone added a name to your list
Laramie
Feminine · #1085 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Laramies are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,800 people named Laramie are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Laramie in 2025?
- Laramie ranks #1085 among US girl names in 2025, with 222 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Laramie?
- About 1 in every 7,240 US girls born in 2025 was named Laramie — 222 in all.
- Will my child share the name Laramie with classmates?
- Laramie will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Laramie
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Saoirse#1085 · Ira#1085 · Joan#1085 · Arlett#1085 · Susan#1085 · Savanna#1085 · Aira#1082 · Carla#1082
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Laramie? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Laramie and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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