Loma
Feminine · “a low rounded ridge”
Loma is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 2,289 girls against 5 boys since 1880.
Loma is a Spanish word before it is anything else. It names a low rounded ridge, the kind of long soft rise that is too gentle to be called a hill and too definite to be called flat ground, and it is scattered across the place names of the American west for exactly that reason.
How old is the name Loma?
Loma was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Loma alive today was born around 1925, making them about 100 years old. About 600 people named Loma are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Loma most popular?
Loma peaked in 1882, reaching #596 nationally. See the whole 1882 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Paloma to Loma
The story of Loma
There is a second route to the same four letters that has nothing to do with geography. Paloma, the Spanish for a dove, loses its first syllable readily in speech, and Loma is what remains. That kind of front-clipping is unusual in English, which prefers to cut from the back, but it is entirely normal in Spanish and in the Spanish-speaking parts of the United States where this name appears earliest. So the word may be a landscape term taken up as a name, or the tail of a bird's name worn smooth by use, and both routes were available in the same households at the same time. The record does not distinguish them and probably never could.
Meaning
a low rounded ridge
Ordinary modern Spanish, related to lomo, the back or ridge of an animal. The word describes a shape rather than a place, which is why so many separate locations carry it. Whether every American family using it as a name knew the Spanish is another question.
How the name formed
- Paloma
- Loma
Related forms: Loma
Pronouncing Loma
LOH-muh
Two syllables with the stress at the front. Spanish says it the same way, which is unusual for a borrowed word and makes the name unusually stable.
Nicknames for Loma
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
- 1880
- Most girls named
- 192174 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #596reached in 1882
- Change vs 1981
- 0.0%5 in 2023, from 5
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.
Loma in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Loma in Spanish — same name
Lomas among us
people named Loma are estimated to be alive in the US today
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Loma sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- It is short, soft and completely easy to say in either language.
- The meaning is concrete and pleasant rather than abstract.
- The spelling is unambiguous and never needs repeating.
- The generation that used it is now extraordinarily old, and the name carries that.
- It is one letter from several other short names and gets misheard easily.
- The spelling is recorded for a few boys, but nearly every child with it is a girl.
Nobody names a baby alone.
Put Loma to the vote.
Add it to a family vote or a couple’s swipe deck — the other person gets one card, a simple answer and room to say why. No app, no account for them.
Only the people you invite can see your list.
Already decided on Loma? Hide it among decoys and let them guess.
What they receive
Someone added a name to your list
Loma
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Lomas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 600 people named Loma are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Loma in 2025?
- Loma is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Loma with classmates?
- Loma will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More L names
The most-given names starting with L, all years combined.
Linda#902 · Lisa#987 · Laura#379 · Lauren#401 · Lillian#57 · Lori#1721 · Louise#514 · Lois#1666
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Loma? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Loma and another name?
See them side by side — full stats, history and a gentle verdict.
Compare side by sideIn a hurry? Just pick a winner — one tap, no sign-up, and you see how everyone else voted.
Weighing a whole shortlist? Add the rest in the builder, or settle it with a bracket.
Cast your vote
Which one would you pick?
Your gut first, the numbers after — the split shows once you pick.
US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
No advertising trackers and no data sellinghow we handle your dataindependent and founder-run, about Name Battle