Homare
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Meaning
honor, glory (Japanese); famously borne by World Cup winner Homare Sawa
The story
Homare is a Japanese name meaning honor and glory, and rarely has a name been so thoroughly earned. Homare Sawa played in six World Cups for Japan, and in 2011 she captained her country to the title, scoring a miraculous flicked equalizer late in extra time of the final against the United States before Japan won the shootout. She finished that tournament holding both the Golden Ball as best player and the Golden Boot as top scorer, and was named the world's best player that year, the first Asian footballer so honored. In Japan the name carries the quiet weight of the old virtue words. In American records Homare barely registers at all, appearing only as a flicker in the 2020s, which makes it a genuinely rare pick: a name of glory that almost no one else will be wearing.
How popular is Homare around the world?
Homare does not appear in US Social Security baby-name records, which list only names given to at least five babies in a year. There is no popularity curve to chart: a genuinely rare pick.
United States
under 5 a year
Homare does not appear in US Social Security baby-name records, which list only names given to at least five babies in a year. There is no popularity curve to chart: a genuinely rare pick.
Births with a Social Security record. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration
Not on the record in Spain, Mexico City, Argentina, Puerto Rico, England and Wales, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, Scotland and Poland: those registries withhold small counts, so rare uses may sit below their floors.
Not on the Chile record: nametree keeps spellings that reached 5 registrations in some year, so rarer uses are not shown. Not on the Montevideo record for 1940 to 2011: that registry withholds nothing, so this spelling was not given there in those years. Not on the France record: nametree keeps spellings that reached 20 births in some year, so rarer uses are not shown. Not on the South Australia record for 1944 to 2017: that registry withholds nothing, so this spelling was not given there in those years. Not on the Austria record for 1984 to 2025: Statistik Austria publishes every first name down to a single birth, so this name was not given there in those years (before 2010 the record covers babies with Austrian citizenship only). Not on Norway’s list: Statistics Norway lists only first names carried by 200 or more living people, so rarer names are not shown.
Keep exploring
The Homare deep dive
Whether you’re naming a baby or exploring your own name’s history, this is a personal letter, not a list: where Homare truly comes from, how it traveled, and what a century of records reveals. If you have grown a tree on nametree, it also considers how Homare fits with your family’s names and surname.
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