Neoma
Feminine · “Hebrew noam”
Naomi renames herself. Returning to Bethlehem widowed and childless, she tells the women not to call her Naomi, which means pleasant, but Mara, which means bitter, because that is what has happened to her.
How old is the name Neoma?
Neoma first appears in US birth records in 1885 — 140 years ago. The typical Neoma alive today was born around 1928, making them about 97 years old. About 900 people named Neoma are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Neoma most popular?
Neoma peaked in 1907, reaching #649 nationally. Today it ranks #10107, 9,458 places below that high. See the whole 1907 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Noomi to Neoma
The story of Neoma
The book of Ruth turns on that moment. Naomi has lost her husband and both sons in Moab, and when she comes home to Bethlehem the women of the town recognize her and use her name, and she refuses it: call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt bitterly with me. It is the only place in the Hebrew Bible where a person renames themselves in grief, and the request does not take; the narrator goes on calling her Naomi for the rest of the book, and by the end she is holding her grandson. The name means pleasantness, from a root about sweetness and delight that also gives the modern Hebrew Noam. Neoma is one of the American nineteenth-century reshapings of it, and it belongs to a period when biblical names were being freely respelled.
Meaningscholars disagree
Hebrew noam, pleasantness
Neoma is most plausibly a variant of Naomi, from Hebrew noam, pleasantness or delight. A derivation from Greek neomenia, the new moon, has also been suggested and is not documented for the American name. The peak is 1907.
How the name formed
- Noomi
- Naomi
- Neoma
Related forms: Naomi · Neomia
Pronouncing Neoma
nee-OH-muh
Three syllables, stress on the second. Some families say NEE-oh-muh with the stress at the front.
Nicknames for Neoma
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
- 192396 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #649reached in 1907
- Change vs 2023
- +50.0%9 in 2025, from 6
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.
Neoma in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Naomi in Hebrew — related form
- Neomia in English — spelling variant
Neomas among us
people named Neoma are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 178,585 born in 2025 was named Neoma
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Neoma
- #10107
- Neoma on the 2025 chart
- #946
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Neoma went to 9 girls in 2025, but Nneoma is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 14, which makes it the 946th most-given girls’ name of the year — 9,161 places above the chart.
- Neoma9
- Nneoma5
About 1 girl in 114,805 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 178,585 for Neoma itself.
Spellings are grouped by a fixed rule that folds interchangeable English spellings of one sound (ck/k, ph/f, x/ks, a non-initial y for i) and keeps vowels apart, so Sean and Shawn stay separate names. It errs towards splitting: a family here is never larger than the truth. SSA national data, 2025. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
Fashion outlook
Neoma 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
Neoma beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Neoma in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Naomi is available as the standard form of the same name.
- Three syllables with an open ending.
- It is genuinely rare in every decade of the records.
- Two stress patterns are in use.
- It will be heard as Naomi, Neoma or Noema.
- The 1907 peak dates it to the turn of the century.
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Neoma
Feminine · #10107 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Neomas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 900 people named Neoma are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Neoma?
- Neoma is the most-used spelling in US records — 9 of the 14 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Nneoma.
- How popular is the name Neoma in 2025?
- Neoma ranks #10107 among US girl names in 2025, with 9 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Neoma?
- About 1 in every 178,585 US girls born in 2025 was named Neoma — 9 in all.
- Will my child share the name Neoma with classmates?
- Neoma will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Neoma
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Berta#10107 · Jettie#10107 · Maye#10107 · Osa#10107 · Fidelia#10107 · Alysa#10107 · Su#10107 · Willie#10107
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Neoma? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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