Omayra
Feminine · “little one who lives long”
Omayra came into Spanish from Arabic, which is a shorter journey than it sounds: Spain was partly Arabic-speaking for some eight hundred years, and the language still carries thousands of words from that period, many of them with the Arabic word for the still stuck on the front.
How old is the name Omayra?
Omayra first appears in US birth records in 1969 — 56 years ago. The typical Omayra alive today was born around 1978, making them about 47 years old. About 800 people named Omayra are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Omayra most popular?
Omayra peaked in 1970, reaching #1474 nationally. See the whole 1970 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Umayra to Omayra
The story of Omayra
When Arabic-speaking rule ended in Spain the language did not leave with it. Spanish kept something in the order of four thousand Arabic words, and a great many of them begin with al, because Spanish speakers heard the Arabic article as part of the word and never separated it again: alcalde the mayor, almohada the pillow, alfombra the carpet, albañil the builder. English inherited a few of them at second hand, which is why we have algebra and alcohol. Names came across the same way, in smaller numbers and with less fanfare, and Omayra belongs to that group. It is commonest now in Spanish-speaking Latin America rather than in Spain, and it arrived in American records with families from the Caribbean.
Meaningscholars disagree
little one who lives long
The usual derivation is from an Arabic diminutive built on a root meaning life or long-living. It is a reasonable reading and the form fits, but Spanish-language name scholarship is thinner than English-language scholarship on names of this kind, and the derivation has not been established beyond argument.
How the name formed
- Umayra
- Omaira
- Omayra
Related forms: Omaira · Umayra
Pronouncing Omayra
oh-MY-rah
Three syllables with the stress in the middle. The ay is the eye sound, not the ay of day, which is the one thing English readers get wrong.
Nicknames for Omayra
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
- 1969
- Most girls named
- 197068 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1474reached in 1970
- Change vs 2012
- −28.6%5 in 2013, from 7
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.
Omayra in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Omaira in Spanish — spelling variant
- Umayra in Arabic — transliteration
Omayras among us
people named Omayra 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
Omayra 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
- It works in Spanish and in English without adjustment, which matters in a great many households.
- Mayra comes off the back of it as a short form and is a standard name in its own right.
- Three syllables with a strong middle stress make it clear and memorable when spoken.
- English readers will try oh-MAY-rah on first sight, so the correction gets made early.
- Omaira is the commoner spelling in Spanish, so this version will be adjusted by Spanish speakers as often as by English ones.
- In Colombia and much of Latin America the name is strongly associated with a child who died in a volcanic disaster and whose photograph went around the world, which families with those connections will already know.
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Omayra
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Omayras are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 800 people named Omayra are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Omayra in 2025?
- Omayra is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Omayra with classmates?
- Omayra 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 Omayra? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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