Tora
Feminine · “Old Norse Thorr”
Tora is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 990 girls against 26 boys since 1880.
The English week is a Norse calendar. Tuesday is Tiw's day, Wednesday is Woden's, Thursday is Thor's and Friday is Frigg's, and Tora is Thor's name with a feminine ending on it.
How old is the name Tora?
Tora first appears in US birth records in 1898 — 127 years ago. The typical Tora alive today was born around 1981, making them about 44 years old. About 900 people named Tora are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Tora most popular?
Tora peaked in 1898, reaching #1502 nationally. Today it ranks #10107, 8,605 places below that high. See the whole 1898 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Thorr to Tora
The story of Tora
When Christian missionaries translated the Roman week into Germanic languages they matched gods to gods: the day of Mars became Tiw's day, the day of Mercury became Woden's day, the day of Jupiter became Thor's day, the day of Venus became Frigg's day. Those four are still in every English week, said by people who have not thought about the gods in a thousand years. Norse naming used the same names directly and heavily: Thor gave Thorstein, Thorbjorn, Thorvald, Torgeir, Tove and Thora, and the element remained popular long after conversion, which suggests it had become simply a name rather than a claim. Tora reached the American records with Scandinavian immigration at the end of the nineteenth century.
Meaning
Old Norse Thorr, the god of thunder
Tora is the Scandinavian Thora, a feminine formed on the name of the god Thor, which is the ordinary Norse word for thunder. The element is one of the most productive in Norse naming. A separate Hebrew word, Torah, meaning teaching or law, shares the spelling and is unrelated. The American peak is 1898.
How the name formed
- Thorr
- Thora
- Tora
Related forms: Tora · Thora · Thora
Pronouncing Tora
TOR-uh
Two syllables, stress on the first. The Scandinavian pronunciation has a fuller final vowel; the Hebrew Torah is stressed on the second syllable.
Nicknames for Tora
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
- 1898
- Most girls named
- 197744 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1502reached in 1898
- Change vs 2023
- +28.6%9 in 2025, from 7
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.
Tora in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Tora in Norwegian — same name
- Thora in Swedish — spelling variant
- Thora in Danish — spelling variant
Toras among us
people named Tora are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 178,585 born in 2025 was named Tora
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Tora
- #10107
- Tora on the 2025 chart
- #944
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Tora went to 9 girls in 2025, but Torah is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 16, which makes it the 944th most-given girls’ name of the year — 9,163 places above the chart.
- Tora9
- Torah7
About 1 girl in 100,454 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 178,585 for Tora 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
Fashion outlook
Tora 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
Tora beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Tora in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Four letters and two syllables, spelled as heard.
- The Norse element is documented and shared with the English week.
- It is a current ordinary name across Scandinavia.
- It shares a spelling with the Hebrew Torah, which is a different word.
- The 1898 peak places it at the start of the records.
- It will be heard as Tara, Nora or Cora.
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What they receive
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Tora
Feminine · #10107 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Toras 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 Tora are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Tora?
- Tora is the most-used spelling in US records — 9 of the 16 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Torah.
- How popular is the name Tora in 2025?
- Tora ranks #10107 among US girl names in 2025, with 9 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Tora?
- About 1 in every 178,585 US girls born in 2025 was named Tora — 9 in all.
- Will my child share the name Tora with classmates?
- Tora will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Tora
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Berta#10107 · Jettie#10107 · Maye#10107 · Osa#10107 · Fidelia#10107 · Alysa#10107 · Su#10107 · Willie#10107
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Tora? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Tora and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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