Tarah
Feminine · “a place of assembly”
Tara is the hill where Irish kings were made. Teamhair is the Irish name for it, a low rise in County Meath with an iron-age enclosure on top, and the High Kingship was tied to it for a thousand years. Quite separately, tara is the Sanskrit for a star and the name of a Buddhist figure venerated across the Himalayas. The two words have nothing to do with each other.
How old is the name Tarah?
Tarah first appears in US birth records in 1963 — 62 years ago. The typical Tarah alive today was born around 1987, making them about 38 years old. About 4,600 people named Tarah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Tarah most popular?
Tarah peaked in 1983, reaching #658 nationally. Today it ranks #13208, 12,550 places below that high. See the whole 1983 chart.
Where it comes from
From Teamhair to Tarah
The story of Tarah
The Hill of Tara was the ceremonial center of early Ireland and remains one of the most excavated sites in the country. The name reached American use twice over: through Irish heritage, and through a novel and film that gave the name to a Georgia plantation, which put it in front of an enormous audience in 1939. The Sanskrit Tara arrived separately with Indian and Buddhist connections. The h-spelling is an American addition to all of this and appears in the record from 1963, peaking in 1983.
Meaningscholars disagree
a place of assembly, or a star
The Irish Teamhair is usually read as a place with a view or a place of assembly, and it names the royal hill in Meath. The Sanskrit tara means a star and belongs to a bodhisattva of compassion in Tibetan and Nepalese Buddhism. Two unrelated languages, one English spelling, and no way to tell which a family meant.
How the name formed
- Teamhair
- Tara
- Tarah
Related forms: Teamhair · Tara
Pronouncing Tarah
TAIR-uh
Two syllables, stress on the first. Some families say TAR-uh with a flatter first vowel, and the Irish hill is said closer to that; both are current in America. The final h is silent.
Nicknames for Tarah
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
- 1963
- Most girls named
- 1985267 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #658reached in 1983
- Change vs 2024
- −33.3%6 in 2025, from 9
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.
Tarah in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Teamhair in Irish — related form
- Tara in Sanskrit — related form
Tarahs among us
people named Tarah are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 267,878 born in 2025 was named Tarah
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Tarah
- #13208
- Tarah on the 2025 chart
- #636
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Tarah went to 6 girls in 2025, but Tara and Taara are the same name said out loud. Together the 3 spellings went to 345, which makes it the 636th most-given girls’ name of the year — 12,572 places above the chart.
- Tara322
- Taara17
- Tarah6
About 1 girl in 4,659 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 267,878 for Tarah 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 Oralia test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Tarah's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Oralia climbed just as high around 1945, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Oralia's path sketches the road Tarah is walking now.
Tarah 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
Tarah beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Tarah in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Both possible origins are substantial — a royal site and a bodhisattva.
- Five letters, two syllables, and easy in any accent.
- The h distinguishes it in writing from a very common spelling.
- Tara is far commoner and will be written instead on nearly everything.
- The final h is silent and will be dropped by people writing quickly.
- For many Americans the name belongs first to a plantation in a novel, which carries its own difficulties.
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Tarah
Feminine · #13208 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Tarahs are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 4,600 people named Tarah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Tarah?
- Tarah is one of 3 recorded spellings. Tara is the more common one — 322 births in 2025 against 6 for Tarah.
- How popular is the name Tarah in 2025?
- Tarah ranks #13208 among US girl names in 2025, with 6 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Tarah?
- About 1 in every 267,878 US girls born in 2025 was named Tarah — 6 in all.
- Will my child share the name Tarah with classmates?
- Tarah will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Tarah
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
John#13208 · Vinnie#13208 · Margery#13208 · Jossie#13208 · Tressa#13208 · Erie#13208 · Bernadine#13208 · Euna#13208
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Tarah? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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