Randa
Feminine · “to be wondered at”
Miranda was invented by Shakespeare, and he built it out of a Latin grammatical form with no exact English equivalent: mirandus means to-be-wondered-at, a thing that must be admired. The whole family of English words — admire, marvel, miracle, mirage, mirror — comes from the same verb.
How old is the name Randa?
Randa first appears in US birth records in 1916 — 109 years ago. The typical Randa alive today was born around 1978, making them about 47 years old. About 3,300 people named Randa are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Randa most popular?
Randa peaked in 1953, reaching #1082 nationally. Today it ranks #10917, 9,835 places below that high. See the whole 1953 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From mirari to Randa
The story of Randa
Latin had a form that English lost: the gerundive, which turns a verb into an obligation. Mirandus is not admired or admirable but to-be-admired, something that has to be wondered at, and Shakespeare took the feminine of it for a girl raised on an island who has never seen another person. That is the whole origin of Miranda, which makes it one of the very few names that can be dated to a single play. English kept the family the verb belongs to: mirari gave admire and marvel, miraculum gave miracle, and the same root gave the Latin for looking at yourself, which is where mirror comes from. Randa is the tail of that word, cut loose in the twentieth century.
Meaningscholars disagree
to be wondered at — or, in Arabic, a fragrant tree
Two unrelated sources. Randa is the clipped form of Miranda, coined by Shakespeare from Latin mirari, to wonder at. It is also an Arabic name in its own right, from rand, a sweet-smelling tree usually identified as the bay laurel. Both are documented and the spelling does not choose.
How the name formed
- mirari
- Miranda
- Randa
Related forms: Randa · Miranda
Pronouncing Randa
RAN-duh
Two syllables, stress on the first, with the a of hand. Arabic says it the same way with a slightly opener first vowel. There is nothing genuinely ambiguous in the spelling.
Nicknames for Randa
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
- 1916
- Most girls named
- 198093 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1082reached in 1953
- Change vs 2023
- +60.0%8 in 2025, 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.
Randa in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Randa in Arabic — same name
- Miranda in Italian — related form
Randas among us
people named Randa are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 200,908 born in 2025 was named Randa
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 Maryanna test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Randa's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Maryanna climbed just as high around 1908, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Maryanna's path sketches the road Randa is walking now.
Randa 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
Randa beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Randa in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Two syllables, five letters, and no sound that is hard in English or Arabic.
- It has documented origins in two unconnected traditions, both of them checkable.
- It is short without being a nickname for one particular thing.
- Most people will assume it is short for Miranda and will ask.
- It is close to Randi, Randy and Rhonda, all of which will be substituted at some point.
- It is strongly represented among older generations of American women, which places it in time.
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What they receive
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Randa
Feminine · #10917 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Randas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 3,300 people named Randa are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Randa in 2025?
- Randa ranks #10917 among US girl names in 2025, with 8 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Randa?
- About 1 in every 200,908 US girls born in 2025 was named Randa — 8 in all.
- Will my child share the name Randa with classmates?
- Randa will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Randa
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Edythe#10917 · Tessie#10917 · Drusilla#10917 · Eugenie#10917 · Ivah#10917 · Karri#10917 · Claribel#10917 · Myrtle#10917
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Randa? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Randa and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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