Tahirah
Feminine · “pure”
Tahirah is an Arabic word for purity, and it has been a title as much as a name. Fatimah, the Prophet's daughter, is called al-Tahirah in Muslim tradition; and in nineteenth-century Persia a poet and theologian took Tahirih as her name at a religious gathering, becoming one of the most remarkable figures of that century.
How old is the name Tahirah?
Tahirah first appears in US birth records in 1971 — 54 years ago. The typical Tahirah alive today was born around 1994, making them about 31 years old. About 900 people named Tahirah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Tahirah most popular?
Tahirah peaked in 1974, reaching #2683 nationally. Today it ranks #14942, 12,259 places below that high. See the whole 1974 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From tahir to Tahirah
The story of Tahirah
The poet born Fatimah Baraghani took the name Tahirih, the Pure One, when she joined the Babi movement in Persia, and she is remembered for removing her veil at a gathering of men — a deliberate and shocking act that she paid for with her life a few years later. Her poetry is still read. That is a considerable weight for a name to carry and it belongs to the Persian and Baha'i traditions more than the Arab one. The name itself is used across the whole Arabic-speaking world independently, and it reached American records through several communities, including African American families adopting Arabic names.
Meaning
pure; chaste; clean
Arabic tahir means pure or ritually clean, and tahira is its feminine. The root t-h-r runs through the vocabulary of ritual purification and is used constantly in religious contexts, which gives the ordinary adjective considerable weight. The meaning is not contested anywhere the language is spoken. Both the honorific use for Fatimah and the personal name descend from the same word without any change of sense.
How the name formed
- tahir
- Tahira
- Tahirah
Related forms: طاهرة · Tahirih · Tahire · Tahira
Pronouncing Tahirah
tah-HEE-rah
tah-HEE-rah, three syllables, stress in the middle, all vowels sounded. The first consonant in Arabic is emphatic — made further back in the mouth than an English t — which English does not distinguish. The final h is lightly sounded rather than silent.
Nicknames for Tahirah
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
- 198232 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #2683reached in 1974
- Change vs 2023
- 0.0%5 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.
Tahirah in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- طاهرة in Arabic — transliteration
- Tahirih in Persian — same name
- Tahire in Turkish — same name
- Tahira in Urdu — same name
Tahirahs among us
people named Tahirah are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 321,453 born in 2025 was named Tahirah
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Tahirah
- #14942
- Tahirah on the 2025 chart
- #938
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Tahirah went to 5 girls in 2025, but Tahira 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 — 14,004 places above the chart.
- Tahira17
- Tahirah5
About 1 girl in 73,058 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 321,453 for Tahirah 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 Sheela test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Tahirah's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Sheela climbed just as high around 1959, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Sheela's path sketches the road Tahirah is walking now.
Tahirah 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
Tahirah beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Tahirah in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- The meaning is settled and short, and it is easy to give in a single word.
- It is a working name across the Arab world, Persia, Turkey and South Asia without translation.
- The historical figure attached to it is genuinely extraordinary and worth knowing about.
- Tahira is the more standard transliteration and this spelling will be corrected toward it.
- The final h is silent in English and will be dropped by databases and by anyone writing from memory.
- The meaning is about purity, which is a concept some families want a daughter's name to carry and others deliberately avoid.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
Someone added a name to your list
Tahirah
Feminine · #14942 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Tahirahs are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 900 people named Tahirah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Tahirah?
- Tahirah is one of 2 recorded spellings. Tahira is the more common one — 17 births in 2025 against 5 for Tahirah.
- How popular is the name Tahirah in 2025?
- Tahirah ranks #14942 among US girl names in 2025, with 5 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Tahirah?
- About 1 in every 321,453 US girls born in 2025 was named Tahirah — 5 in all.
- Will my child share the name Tahirah with classmates?
- Tahirah will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Tahirah
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Hester#14942 · Lyda#14942 · Zula#14942 · Zona#14942 · Ula#14942 · Belva#14942 · Lucetta#14942 · Leala#14942
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Tahirah? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Tahirah and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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