Medora
Feminine
Byron published The Corsair in 1814 and it sold ten thousand copies on the day it came out, which had never happened to a poem before and has rarely happened since. Its heroine is Medora, and the name went straight from the page into the registers.
How old is the name Medora?
Medora first appears in US birth records in 1885 — 140 years ago. The typical Medora alive today was born around 1926, making them about 99 years old. About 300 people named Medora are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Medora most popular?
Medora peaked in 1885, reaching #695 nationally. Today it ranks #11932, 11,237 places below that high. See the whole 1885 chart.
Where it comes from
Origin, sound and short forms
The story of Medora
The Corsair is a pirate poem, and its commercial performance is the fact people still cite: ten thousand copies in a day, at a time when a successful book of poems sold a few hundred. Byron was the most famous writer in Europe and the name went everywhere the poem did. It reached America immediately and turns up in nineteenth-century records well before anything else could account for it. One American Medora is a town: a French marquis founded a settlement in the Dakota badlands in 1883 and named it after his wife, who was called Medora, and the town is still there with a few hundred people in it.
Meaningnot established
Not established
Medora appears to have been invented or adapted by Byron and has no established source. A connection with Greek Medousa or with a verb meaning to protect has been proposed and neither is supported. The honest description is a literary coinage of 1814.
Pronouncing Medora
muh-DOR-uh
Three syllables, stress in the middle. MED-uh-ruh, front-loaded, is occasionally used and follows the English reading of the letters rather than the poem's scansion.
Nicknames for Medora
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
- 1885
- Most girls named
- 192025 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #695reached in 1885
- Change vs 2022
- +40.0%7 in 2025, 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.
Medoras among us
people named Medora are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 229,610 born in 2025 was named Medora
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
Fashion outlook
Medora 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
Medora beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Medora in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A precisely datable origin in a specific and famous poem.
- Three short forms, one of which is a full name in its own right.
- Three open syllables with a clear central stress.
- There is no meaning behind it, only an inventor and a date.
- Very few people carry it now and almost all of them are old.
- It is close enough to Medora, Meadow and Theodora to be misheard as any of them.
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What they receive
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Medora
Feminine · #11932 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Medoras are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 300 people named Medora are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Medora in 2025?
- Medora ranks #11932 among US girl names in 2025, with 7 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Medora?
- About 1 in every 229,610 US girls born in 2025 was named Medora — 7 in all.
- Will my child share the name Medora with classmates?
- Medora will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Medora
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Vina#11932 · Retta#11932 · Missouri#11932 · Iola#11932 · Eddie#11932 · Thomas#11932 · Louetta#11932 · Elvina#11932
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Medora? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Medora and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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