Shamara
Feminine
Shamara can be taken apart two ways and both are defensible. Read as a prefix plus a base, it is a familiar American front syllable joined to Mara. Read as a single word, it is Samara with an h slipped in after the first letter, which is a common American device for marking a name as a name. The two readings point at completely different histories, and the spelling refuses to choose.
How old is the name Shamara?
Shamara first appears in US birth records in 1971 — 54 years ago. The typical Shamara alive today was born around 1992, making them about 33 years old. About 1,600 people named Shamara are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Shamara most popular?
Shamara peaked in 1986, reaching #1866 nationally. See the whole 1986 chart.
Where it comes from
From A front syllable in wide American use to Shamara
Our story of Shamara
The word samara is worth knowing whichever reading you take. It is the botanical name for a winged seed, the kind a maple or an ash drops, built so that the wing sets it spinning as it falls and carries it away from the parent tree. Botanists borrowed the word from Latin, where it named the seed of the elm, and it is one of the few technical terms in the field that everybody has held in their hand as a child. That is the near neighbor on one side. On the other side sits the ordinary machinery of American naming: a stock of front syllables that attach to almost anything, applied here to a short base with the right rhythm. Both are real, both are available, and the family that chose the name is the only authority on which was meant. Names of this kind are not empty. They are simply young, and young names have construction rather than etymology.
Meaningnot established
Not established
Neither reading yields a meaning that can be assigned with confidence. Mara is a real Hebrew word and a real name, but a prefixed coinage does not inherit its base's sense any more than a compound inherits the meaning of a syllable. Samara is a Latin botanical term and a Russian city and a name in several traditions, and it is not clear that this name has anything to do with any of them. The accurate description is a modern American name with two possible constructions and no established source.
How the name formed
- A front syllable in wide American use
- Mara and Samara both available as bases
- Shamara appearing in the registers
- Shamarra and Shamira alongside it
Pronouncing Shamara
shuh-MAR-uh
Three syllables with the stress in the middle and a broad a in it. Some families place the stress on the first syllable instead, giving SHAM-uh-ruh, and the spelling supports both readings equally.
Nicknames for Shamara
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
- 1971
- Most girls named
- 198966 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1866reached in 1986
- Change vs 2021
- −16.7%5 in 2023, 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.
Shamaras among us
people named Shamara 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
Shamara 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
- The middle stress gives it a strong, even rhythm that carries well when said in full.
- Mara sits inside it as an old and portable short form.
- It is unusual without being difficult, which is a narrow and useful position.
- The stress is genuinely unsettled and strangers will guess wrong roughly half the time.
- It sits close to Samara and Shamira on paper, and all three will be confused.
- There is no meaning to give, and the honest answer describes how the name is built rather than what it says.
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What they receive
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Shamara
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Shamaras are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,600 people named Shamara are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Shamara in 2025?
- Shamara is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Shamara with classmates?
- Shamara will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More S names
The most-given names starting with S, all years combined.
Susan#1085 · Sarah#90 · Sandra#1207 · Stephanie#557 · Sharon#1250 · Shirley#1581 · Samantha#151 · Sophia#5
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Shamara? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Shamara and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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