Norah
Meaning
variant of Nora, short form of Honora/Eleanor
The story
Norah is Nora wearing its old Irish h, the spelling closer to Honora, the honorable, one of its two source names, the other being Eleanor. For a full century the American record barely moved: between about 110 and 360 girls every single decade from the 1890s through the 1990s, a flat line of remarkable stubbornness. Then it multiplied twelve times over in one decade, about 4,500 in the 2000s, the exact years a soft-voiced singer named Norah swept the Grammys and sold albums by the tens of millions. Decade buckets point, they do not convict; but a century-flat line does not usually bend that hard on its own. The climb continued to about 17,700 in the 2010s, with 9,200 so far this decade. In our records it is a girls' name at about 33,700 to 130, and this decade entirely: 9,203 to zero.
Popularity, 1890–2024
Shape drawn from US Social Security baby-name records. Norah peaked in the 2010s and the 2020s in nearly equal measure.
See popularity in Brazil
Popularity in Brazil
112 people · the #38,089 first name in Brazil · about 1 in 1,000,000 · median age 38
Among people named Norah living in Brazil at the 2022 census, more were born in the 2010s than in any other decade.
Source: IBGE, Censo Demográfico 2022
When you meet Norah
Most people given the name Norah in the United States are children or teenagers today. The name belongs to this generation.
Estimated from US Social Security birth registrations and typical lifespans; a rough guide, not a rule.
The Norah deep dive
Whether you’re naming a baby or exploring your own name’s history, this is a personal letter, not a list: where Norah 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 Norah fits with your family’s names and surname.
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