Oma
Feminine
Oma is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 9,598 girls against 181 boys since 1880.
Oma is a name with several unrelated claimants: a German word for grandmother, an Arabic name, and — most likely in the American registers — a short form of one of the many Victorian names ending in -oma or beginning with Om-.
How old is the name Oma?
Oma was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Oma alive today was born around 1920, making them about 105 years old. About 1,500 people named Oma are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Oma most popular?
Oma peaked in 1901, reaching #275 nationally. See the whole 1901 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
Origin, sound and short forms
Our story of Oma
Our story of Oma begins in a decade that liked three-letter names for daughters. Ora, Ola, Ida, Ada and Eva were all in the same registers, and a name that fit their shape needed no further justification. Somebody wrote Oma, and then several thousand other families did the same, mostly across the American South and Midwest. It peaked around 1890 and left no note about where it came from — which is the honest answer, and a common one for names of that period.
Meaningnot established
Not established
No settled origin for the American name. The German Oma means 'grandmother' and is a nursery word rather than a given name. Arabic has Umm and Oma as separate elements. In nineteenth-century American use it is most plausibly a clipping — of Naomi read backwards, of Omalia, or simply a short vowel-heavy name of the kind that period favored.
Pronouncing Oma
OH-muh
Two syllables, stress on the first. German says it the same way.
Nicknames for Oma
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
- 1880
- Most girls named
- 1915279 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #275reached in 1901
- Change vs 2016
- 0.0%5 in 2018, 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.
Oma in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Oma in German — same name
- Omie in English — spelling variant
- Naomi in Hebrew — related form
Omas among us
people named Oma 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
Oma has already lived its whole cycle: it rose, had its era, and has stepped off the charts. The fashion question is behind it — what lies ahead is the waiting room where revivals begin, once a name's first generation has grown distant enough for it to sound fresh again.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- Three letters, two syllables, and easy for a very young child to write.
- It is genuinely rare now while being entirely traditional in the registers.
- The sound is soft throughout with no hard consonants.
- In German the same word means grandmother and is not used as a given name.
- It has no documented meaning or parent name in English use.
- It is strongly period-coded to the late nineteenth century.
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Oma
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Omas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,500 people named Oma are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Oma in 2025?
- Oma is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Oma with classmates?
- Oma will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More O names
The most-given names starting with O, all years combined.
Olivia#1 · Opal#423 · Olive#197 · Olga#3167 · Ollie#2276 · Ora#3712 · Ola#7885 · Ophelia#264
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Oma? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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