Mara
Feminine · “Either "bitter" in Hebrew”
Mara is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 24,038 girls against 16 boys since 1880.
Mara arrives in English along two roads at once: the name Naomi gives herself in the Book of Ruth, and the everyday short form of Maria used across Croatia, Serbia, Hungary, Romania and Italy. It has been on American records for generations without ever becoming crowded. Four letters, two syllables, no spelling lesson attached.
How old is the name Mara?
Mara first appears in US birth records in 1892 — 133 years ago. The typical Mara alive today was born around 1997, making them about 28 years old. About 23,000 people named Mara are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Mara most popular?
Mara peaked in 1990, reaching #538 nationally. Today it ranks #587, 49 places below that high. See the whole 1990 chart.
Mara appears on these lists:
Where it comes from
From Miryam to Mara
The story of Mara
The oldest documented appearance is scriptural: in the first chapter of the Book of Ruth, Naomi comes home to Bethlehem after burying her husband and sons and asks to be called Mara, bitter, instead of Naomi, pleasant. That verse kept the form in print through every English Bible for centuries. The second road is entirely separate and entirely domestic — across the Balkans, Hungary, Romania and Italy, Mara has long been what people actually call a Marija or a Maria, the way English speakers say Meg for Margaret. Both roads led to the United States, and by the late nineteenth century Mara was being registered here as a name in its own right rather than a nickname.
Meaningscholars disagree
Either "bitter" in Hebrew, or a short form of Maria
Two serious readings sit side by side. In Hebrew, mara/marah means bitter — in Ruth 1:20 the widowed Naomi tells the women of Bethlehem to call her Mara instead of Naomi. Quite separately, Mara is the ordinary clipped form of Marija/Maria in the South Slavic languages, Hungarian, Romanian and Italian, and there the meaning is simply whatever Maria means, itself unsettled ground. Neither road borrowed from the other; they simply arrived at the same four letters.
How the name formed
- Miryam
- Maria
- Marija
- Mara
Related forms: Mara · Mara · Mara · Mara · מָרָא · Μάρα
Pronouncing Mara
MAH-rah
MAH-rah is the usual American reading, with the first syllable like the start of "marble". Some families say MARR-ah, rhyming the first part with "marry", and both are established. Worth deciding early, because strangers will guess either one.
Nicknames for Mara
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
- 1892
- Most girls named
- 2023516 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #538reached in 1990
- Change vs 2023
- −3.3%499 in 2025, from 516
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.
Mara in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Mara in Croatian / Serbian — same name
- Mara in Hungarian — same name
- Mara in Romanian — same name
- Mara in Italian — same name
- מָרָא in Hebrew — transliteration
- Μάρα in Greek — transliteration
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Ohio, Minnesota.
Maras among us
people named Mara are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 3,221 born in 2025 was named Mara
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 Socorro test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Mara's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Socorro climbed just as high around 1929, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Socorro's path sketches the road Mara is walking now.
Mara 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 Mara is headed
Mara 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.
Mara beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Mara in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Short, phonetic and spelled the way it is written — most people get it right on the first try, in writing and aloud.
- The same four letters work unchanged in Croatian, Hungarian, Romanian and Italian, which makes it easy across families and borders.
- A documented record reaching back to the Book of Ruth, and unbroken use in American records for well over a century.
- Complete as it stands: it needs no nickname, though Mar and Mars are there if wanted.
- Familiar enough to need no explaining, uncommon enough that a Mara will rarely share her name in a classroom.
- Two live pronunciations, MAH-rah and MARR-ah, mean a lifetime of gentle correcting for whichever one you choose.
- It sits close to Maria, Marah, Maura, Mira and Sara, so expect the occasional misheard or mistyped version — especially over the phone.
- If the Hebrew reading matters to you, know that in Ruth the word is chosen precisely to mean bitter; many families are drawn to the passage anyway, for Naomi's honesty rather than her grief.
- The unrelated Germanic word mara, the sleep-spirit behind English "nightmare", and Māra, the tempter figure in Buddhist texts, share the sound by coincidence. Almost no one makes the connection, but it can surface once in a while.
Nobody names a baby alone.
Put Mara to the vote.
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What they receive
Someone added a name to your list
Mara
Feminine · #587 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Maras are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 23,000 people named Mara are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Mara in 2025?
- Mara ranks #587 among US girl names in 2025, with 499 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Mara?
- About 1 in every 3,221 US girls born in 2025 was named Mara — 499 in all.
- Will my child share the name Mara with classmates?
- Mara will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Mara
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Alia#587 · Chaya#587 · Jennifer#586 · Lylah#584 · Marigold#590 · Meilani#590 · Jordan#584 · Noemi#583
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Mara? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Mara and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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