Taraji
Feminine · “Swahili "hope”
Taraji is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 2,764 girls against 50 boys since 1880.
Swahili is a Bantu language with an Arabic vocabulary, and Taraji is one of the borrowings. Around a third of Swahili words came in from Arabic across a thousand years of Indian Ocean trade — the grammar stayed African and the lexicon went international.
How old is the name Taraji?
Taraji first appears in US birth records in 2002 — 23 years ago. The typical Taraji alive today was born around 2012, making them about 13 years old. About 2,700 people named Taraji are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Taraji most popular?
Taraji peaked in 2010, reaching #680 nationally. Today it ranks #7491, 6,811 places below that high. See the whole 2010 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From rajā to Taraji
The story of Taraji
The Swahili coast — from Somalia to Mozambique, with Zanzibar, Lamu and Kilwa as its great cities — was the western end of the Indian Ocean trade system for a thousand years, and the language records it. Arabic supplied vocabulary for religion, law, commerce, time and abstract thought; Persian, Hindi, Portuguese and later English added more. The name Swahili is itself Arabic, from sawahil, coasts. The comparison with Urdu is close: an Indo-Aryan grammar with a Persian and Arabic literary vocabulary, produced by the same kind of long contact. Taraji entered American figures in the 2000s and peaks in 2010.
Meaning
Swahili "hope, expectation"
From Swahili taraji, to hope or expect, borrowed from Arabic rajā, hope, through the verbal form tarajjā. The name is used in East Africa and has been adopted in America. Swahili is a Bantu language of the Sabaki group; the Arabic element is lexical rather than structural, so the grammar, noun classes and verb system are entirely African.
How the name formed
- rajā
- taraji
- Taraji
Related forms: Taraji · رجاء
Pronouncing Taraji
tah-RAH-jee
Three syllables, stress on the second, with pure vowels and an English j sound. Swahili stresses the penultimate syllable as a rule, which puts the weight on RAH.
Nicknames for Taraji
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
- 2002
- Most girls named
- 2010423 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #680reached in 2010
- Change vs 2024
- −58.8%14 in 2025, from 34
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.
Taraji in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Taraji in Swahili — same name
- رجاء in Arabic — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: Florida, Georgia, Texas.
Tarajis among us
people named Taraji are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 114,805 born in 2025 was named Taraji
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 Ernestina test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Taraji's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Ernestina climbed just as high around 1933, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Ernestina's path sketches the road Taraji is walking now.
Taraji 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
Taraji beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Taraji 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, positive and easy to explain.
- Tara is an immediate short form and a settled name of its own.
- It is used across East Africa rather than newly coined.
- English speakers sometimes stress the first or last syllable instead.
- It is strongly associated with one American actress.
- It is rare enough in the United States to need spelling out.
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What they receive
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Taraji
Feminine · #7491 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Tarajis are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 2,700 people named Taraji are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Taraji in 2025?
- Taraji ranks #7491 among US girl names in 2025, with 14 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Taraji?
- About 1 in every 114,805 US girls born in 2025 was named Taraji — 14 in all.
- Will my child share the name Taraji with classmates?
- Taraji will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Taraji
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Christie#7491 · Carmelita#7491 · Jetta#7491 · Hildegard#7491 · Rickie#7491 · Billy#7491 · Angelyn#7491 · Jewell#7491
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Taraji? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Taraji and another name?
See them side by side — full stats, history and a gentle verdict.
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Which one would you pick?
Your gut first, the numbers after — the split shows once you pick.
US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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