Tahira
Feminine · “pure”
Tahirih was a poet, a theologian, and the first woman in Iran to remove her veil in public, at a gathering in 1848. She was executed four years later and is said to have told her killers that they could kill her whenever they liked but could not stop the emancipation of women.
How old is the name Tahira?
Tahira first appears in US birth records in 1970 — 55 years ago. The typical Tahira alive today was born around 1996, making them about 29 years old. About 1,300 people named Tahira are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Tahira most popular?
Tahira peaked in 1975, reaching #2023 nationally. Today it ranks #6546, 4,523 places below that high. See the whole 1975 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From tahir to Tahira
The story of Tahira
The root t-h-r governs one of the central practical concepts of Islamic law, since ritual purity is a precondition of prayer, and the adjective is applied both to people and to states. As a title it belongs to the women closest to the Prophet. Its most striking modern bearer was Fatimah Baraghani, known as Tahirih, a nineteenth-century Persian poet and Babi leader whose public unveiling in 1848 was one of the most consequential single acts in the religious history of Iran; she was executed in 1852. Tahira reached United States records with South Asian and Arab migration and had its best year in 1975.
Meaning
pure, chaste, clean
Arabic tahira is the feminine of tahir, from the root t-h-r, meaning ritual and moral purity. At-Tahira, the Pure One, is a traditional title of both Khadija and Fatima. The word carries a ceremonial as well as a moral sense: taharah is the state of ritual cleanliness required for prayer, so the name names a religious condition rather than only a virtue.
How the name formed
- tahir
- tahira
- Tahira
Related forms: Tahira · Tahereh · Tahira · Tahire
Pronouncing Tahira
tah-HEE-rah
Three syllables with the stress in the middle. The h is a real consonant made in the throat and must be sounded; English speakers who drop it produce tuh-EER-uh, which is a different word.
Nicknames for Tahira
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
- 1970
- Most girls named
- 197543 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #2023reached in 1975
- Change vs 2024
- −10.5%17 in 2025, from 19
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.
Tahira in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Tahira in Arabic — same name
- Tahereh in Persian — transliteration
- Tahira in Urdu — same name
- Tahire in Turkish — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: New York.
Tahiras among us
people named Tahira are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 94,545 born in 2025 was named Tahira
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Tahira
- #6546
- Tahira on the 2025 chart
- #938
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Tahira went to 17 girls in 2025, but Tahirah is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 22, which makes it the 938th most-given girls’ name of the year — 5,608 places above the chart.
- Tahira17
- Tahirah5
About 1 girl in 73,058 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 94,545 for Tahira 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
The Annella test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Tahira's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Annella climbed just as high around 1930, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Annella's path sketches the road Tahira is walking now.
Tahira 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
Tahira beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Tahira in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A settled Arabic meaning with both religious and moral weight behind it.
- A documented and remarkable nineteenth-century bearer.
- Simple vowels and no clusters, so English speakers manage it at once.
- The medial h tends to be swallowed in English mouths.
- Tahera, Tahirah and Tahira all circulate and split the records.
- It is close to Tahara and Zahira and gets confused with both.
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What they receive
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Tahira
Feminine · #6546 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Tahiras are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,300 people named Tahira are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Tahira?
- Tahira is the most-used spelling in US records — 17 of the 22 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Tahirah.
- How popular is the name Tahira in 2025?
- Tahira ranks #6546 among US girl names in 2025, with 17 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Tahira?
- About 1 in every 94,545 US girls born in 2025 was named Tahira — 17 in all.
- Will my child share the name Tahira with classmates?
- Tahira will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Tahira
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Roseann#6546 · Solveig#6546 · Elona#6546 · Rosette#6546 · Bradie#6546 · Rida#6546 · Gwendalyn#6546 · Lorene#6546
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Tahira? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Tahira and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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