Homare
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.
Popularity, 1890–2024
Shape drawn from US Social Security baby-name records. Homare has stayed rare in US records the whole time: no peak decade to name.
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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