Ira
Meaning
in Indian use a feminine name, Sanskrit "the Earth"; also Hebrew "watchful" (King David's priest, a Puritan-era American classic) and a Russian short form of Irina
The story
Ira is really several names sharing three letters. The old American Ira is Hebrew, "watchful", the name of King David's priest in the Old Testament; Behind the Name notes the Puritans brought it to America in the 17th century, and the records agree it stayed: about 1,900 boys in the 1890s, about 7,900 in the 1920s, still about 1,700 so far this decade, present in every decade of the record. The newer line is different: Behind the Name lists Ira as a short form of Irina, and in India it is a feminine name in its own right, Sanskrit for the Earth; the girls' side has climbed from about 96 in the 1990s to about 980 in the 2010s and about 1,050 so far this decade, already past every completed decade of its own record. A priest's name, a Russian nickname, and a Sanskrit Earth, all in two syllables.
The formal names behind Ira
Ira is an established short form of this name.
Irina · Russian origin · peace
Popularity, 1890–2024
Shape drawn from US Social Security baby-name records. Ira peaked in the 2020s.
See popularity in Brazil
Popularity in Brazil
1,341 people · the #6,793 first name in Brazil · about 1 in 142,857 · median age 44
Among people named Ira living in Brazil at the 2022 census, more were born in the 1970s than in any other decade.
The census also counted 28 born between 2020 and August 2022, too recent a span to chart.
Source: IBGE, Censo Demográfico 2022
The Ira deep dive
Whether you’re naming a baby or exploring your own name’s history, this is a personal letter, not a list: where Ira 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 Ira fits with your family’s names and surname.
Where Ira travels
Indian · Sanskrit "the Earth", in Puranic tradition the mother of all vegetation; a modern Indian feminine name
Keep exploring
Indian baby names · Indian American baby names · Short names
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