Yara
Feminine
Yara is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 7,534 girls against 31 boys since 1880.
Yara reaches American records from several directions at once — from Arabic-speaking families, from Hebrew, from Persian, and from Brazil, where Iara is the water spirit of Tupi-Guarani story. Two open syllables, no silent letters, and very nearly the same sound in every one of those languages.
How old is the name Yara?
Yara first appears in US birth records in 1969 — 56 years ago. The typical Yara is a kid of about 7 — this name's wave is very recent. About 7,500 people named Yara are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Yara most popular?
Yara peaked in 2025, reaching #507 nationally. Today it ranks #507, exactly where it peaked. See the whole 2025 chart.
Yara appears on this list:
Where it comes from
Origin, sound and short forms
The story of Yara
This is one spelling standing at a crossroads rather than one name with one road. Brazilian Portuguese has Iara, sometimes spelled Yara, from Tupi-Guarani story, where she belongs to the river; the name has been used for girls in Brazil for generations. Hebrew has Ya'ara, a plant-and-honey name of the kind Israeli parents drew on heavily in the twentieth century. Arabic and Persian speakers arrive at the same two syllables independently, and Yara has been common across the Levant for decades — which is how the spelling came into American use, carried by families from all of these places.
Meaningscholars disagree
Several genuine readings: "lady of the water" (Tupi), "honeycomb, honeysuckle" (Hebrew), "strength, capability" (Persian)
In Brazilian folklore, Iara — also written Yara — is the woman of the river, her name traced to Tupi elements for water and lady or lord. In Hebrew, Ya'ara (יערה) means honeycomb or honeysuckle. In Persian, yārā carries the sense of strength or capability and stands beside yār, "friend, companion." Yara is also widely used across the Arabic-speaking world, where it is often glossed online as "small butterfly"; that reading circulates far more widely than any evidence for it. An unsettled name here means a well-populated one, not a broken one.
Pronouncing Yara
YAH-rah
Two even syllables, stress on the first, the a's as in "father." Some American speakers land on YAIR-uh instead, closer to "Sarah." The Brazilian form Iara is said ee-AH-rah, with the stress in the middle.
Nicknames for Yara
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
- 1969
- Most girls named
- 2025585 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #507reached in 2025
- Change vs 2024
- +12.7%585 in 2025, from 519
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.
Yara in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- يارا in Arabic — transliteration
- Iara in Portuguese — related form
- Ya'ara in Hebrew — related form
- یارا in Persian — transliteration
- Yarah in English — spelling variant
- Jara in German — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, New York.
Yaras among us
people named Yara are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 2,747 born in 2025 was named Yara
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 Natalee test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Yara's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Natalee climbed just as high around 2006, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Natalee's path sketches the road Yara is walking now.
Yara is climbing fast right now. Steep climbs tend to come with steep descents — the quicker a name arrives, the more firmly it belongs to its moment.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Yara is headed
Yara should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
Medium confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Yara beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Yara in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Four letters, two syllables, and no silent or optional ones — most people can spell it correctly after hearing it once.
- Belongs naturally in Arabic, Hebrew, Persian and Portuguese as well as English, so it travels between families and countries without translation.
- Reads unmistakably as a girl's name in American use, with no gender-guessing on a class list.
- Has a long record in several languages while remaining uncommon in the United States — familiar-sounding without being duplicated in a classroom.
- The competing spellings are the real friction: Yara, Yarah and Iara all exist, and someone will occasionally write the wrong one. Choosing Yara puts you on the version most used in American records.
- The "small butterfly" meaning appears on many websites with nothing solid behind it. If the meaning is part of why you love the name, it is worth knowing which readings are actually documented.
- In Turkish, the word yara means "wound" — irrelevant in most American settings, but worth knowing if your family or circle includes Turkish speakers.
- The American wave is very recent and still building, so a child named Yara now may well meet others her age later on, even though she is unlikely to share a classroom with one.
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What they receive
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Yara
Feminine · #507 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Yaras are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 7,500 people named Yara are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Yara in 2025?
- Yara ranks #507 among US girl names in 2025, with 585 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Yara?
- About 1 in every 2,747 US girls born in 2025 was named Yara — 585 in all.
- Will my child share the name Yara with classmates?
- Yara will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Yara
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Beatrice#508 · Estella#509 · Raegan#505 · Scarlet#509 · Mariam#505 · Hanna#511 · Alisson#511 · Nylah#503
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Yara? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Yara and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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