Naoma
Feminine · “pleasant”
Naomi renames herself in the book of Ruth and the book keeps calling her Naomi anyway. She comes home from Moab having lost a husband and two sons and tells the women not to call her pleasant any more but bitter — and then the narrator ignores her and uses the old name for the rest of the story.
How old is the name Naoma?
Naoma first appears in US birth records in 1884 — 141 years ago. The typical Naoma alive today was born around 1926, making them about 99 years old. About 600 people named Naoma are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Naoma most popular?
Naoma peaked in 1924, reaching #747 nationally. See the whole 1924 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Noomi to Naoma
The story of Naoma
It is one of the few places in the Bible where somebody tries to change their own name and it does not take. Renaming happens constantly in those books — Abram to Abraham, Jacob to Israel, Simon to Peter — and it always sticks, because God does it. Naomi does it herself, and the narrator quietly declines. By the end of the book the women of Bethlehem are calling her by the original name again and telling her she is better off than she thinks. Naoma is the American spelling that swaps the final i for an a, which Latinizes a Hebrew name that never went through Latin.
Meaning
pleasant
The Hebrew is straightforward and the text plays on it directly. The name she asks for instead, Mara, means bitter, and the contrast is the point of the passage.
How the name formed
- Noomi
- Naomi
- Naoma
Related forms: Noomi
Pronouncing Naoma
nay-OH-muh
Three syllables with the weight in the middle. Naomi ends on a long e; this spelling ends on a hum.
Nicknames for Naoma
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
- 1884
- Most girls named
- 192375 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #747reached in 1924
- Change vs 2007
- 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.
Naoma in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Noomi in Hebrew — transliteration
Naomas among us
people named Naoma 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
Naoma 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
- Every sound in it is easy in English and the spelling follows the sound.
- The story behind it is short, memorable and unusually humane.
- It is genuinely uncommon while being entirely readable.
- Naomi is the standard spelling and will be written instead.
- The changed ending does alter the sound, so the two are not simply variants.
- It reads clearly as a name of the early twentieth century.
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Naoma
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Naomas 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 Naoma are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Naoma in 2025?
- Naoma is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Naoma with classmates?
- Naoma will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More N names
The most-given names starting with N, all years combined.
Nancy#965 · Nicole#382 · Natalie#89 · Norma#2002 · Nora#20 · Naomi#47 · Nellie#533 · Nina#324
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Naoma? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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