Naomi
Feminine · Hebrew roots · “Pleasantness”
Naomi is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 191,547 girls against 290 boys since 1880.
Naomi comes out of the Book of Ruth, where she is the woman who leaves Bethlehem in a famine and comes home again with a daughter-in-law who refuses to be sent away. English speakers took it up in the Reformation era, when families began reaching past the saints' calendar for Hebrew names, and it has never really gone quiet since. Three syllables, all open vowels, no hard consonant anywhere in it.
How old is the name Naomi?
Naomi was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Naomi alive today was born around 1995, making them about 30 years old. About 139,000 people named Naomi are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Naomi most popular?
Naomi peaked in 2023, reaching #44 nationally. Today it ranks #47, 3 places below that high. See the whole 2023 chart.
Where it comes from
From Naʿomi (Hebrew) to Naomi
The story of Naomi
The name is Hebrew, and its written life begins in the Book of Ruth. The Greek translators of the Hebrew Bible rendered it Noemin, and the Latin Vulgate Noemi — the form that still stands in Italian, Spanish and Polish. English use came later, with the Protestant turn to Old Testament names in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and it traveled with English-speaking settlers from there. Separately and by pure coincidence, Naomi is also a native Japanese name written with kanji such as 直美, meaning something like 'honest beauty'; the two names look identical in the Latin alphabet and share no history at all.
Meaning
Pleasantness; pleasant, agreeable
From the Hebrew root naʿem, 'to be pleasant or sweet'. The Book of Ruth plays on it directly: returning widowed, Naomi tells the women of Bethlehem to call her Mara, 'bitter', instead.
Cultural footprint
Naomi Watts (b. 1968) — Two-time Oscar nominee (The Impossible)
Naomi Campbell (b. 1970) — One of the original '90s supermodels
Naomi Osaka (b. 1997) — Four-time Grand Slam tennis champion
Source: Wikidata — the one source on this page that is not an official agency.
How the name formed
- NaʿomiHebrew
- NoeminGreek Septuagint
- NoemiLatin Vulgate
- NaomiEnglish
Related forms: נעמי (Naʿomi) · Noémie · Noemi · Noemí · Noemi · Noemin
Pronouncing Naomi
nay-OH-mee
nay-OH-mee is standard in American English; some speakers stress the first syllable instead, NAY-oh-mee. The Hebrew is closer to nah-oh-MEE, with the weight at the end, and Japanese bearers of the identical spelling say nah-oh-mee with even syllables.
Nicknames for Naomi
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
- 1880
- Most girls named
- 20254,644 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #44reached in 2023
- Change vs 2022
- +3.1%4,644 in 2025, from 4,503
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.
Naomi in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- נעמי (Naʿomi) in Hebrew — same name
- Noémie in French — related form
- Noemi in Italian — related form
- Noemí in Spanish — related form
- Noemi in Polish — related form
- Noemin in Greek — transliteration
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Florida. International figures from Statistics Canada. Sources
Naomis among us
people named Naomi are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 346 born in 2025 was named Naomi
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 Joanne test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Naomi's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Joanne climbed just as high around 1935, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Joanne's path sketches the road Naomi is walking now.
Naomi 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 Naomi is headed
Naomi 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.
Naomi beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Naomi in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A spelling nearly everyone can already write from hearing it once, with no silent letters or doubled consonants to explain.
- Recognizable across Hebrew, French, Italian, Spanish and Polish, so it travels without translation.
- A continuous written record from the Book of Ruth to the present, and continuous English use since the Reformation.
- Well represented among adults today as well as among newborns, so it reads as a grown woman's name and a child's name at once.
- Carried by prominent women on several continents, in sport, letters and film.
- Stress placement genuinely varies — nay-OH-mee, NAY-oh-mee, nah-oh-MEE — so she may spend a lifetime gently correcting people, or simply answering to all three.
- Noemi, Noemie and Naomie are all live spellings elsewhere, which means the occasional form filled out wrong even though the English spelling is the plain one.
- The name sits close to the strongest showing it has ever had in the United States, so it is climbing rather than obscure — familiar to most people who hear it, though a child is still unlikely to share a classroom with another.
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What they receive
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Naomi
Feminine · Hebrew roots · #47 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Naomis are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 139,000 people named Naomi are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Naomi in 2025?
- Naomi ranks #47 among US girl names in 2025, with 4,644 babies given the name.
- How common is the name Naomi?
- About 1 in every 346 US girls born in 2025 was named Naomi — 4,644 in all.
- Will my child share the name Naomi with classmates?
- Naomi will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Naomi
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Nova#46 · Riley#48 · Eloise#49 · Emilia#45 · Willow#44 · Sadie#50 · Mila#43 · Delilah#51
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Naomi? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Naomi and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration; international figures from national statistics agencies. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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