Padma
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Meaning
lotus in Sanskrit; also the Padma River, the combined flow of the Ganges and Jamuna after their confluence
The story
Padma means lotus in Sanskrit, but on a map of Bangladesh the name changes scale. The Padma River is the combined flow of the Ganges and Jamuna after they meet at Goalanda, moving onward toward the Meghna. The flower and the river belong beside each other without requiring a shared naming story for every bearer. One is a lexical root; the other is a vast, contemporary place carrying the same name. In 2022 the Padma Bridge opened to traffic, adding a human line across that water. Even there, the river remains the main character: confluence, current, and a name wide enough to appear in a dictionary and across a landscape. Latin Padma can also transcribe masculine and feminine Sanskrit forms, so the spelling alone cannot settle a bearer's language or gender tradition. The honest picture is richer than a single lotus: a flower word, two rivers meeting, and a bridge over the flow they become.
How popular is Padma around the world?
In the United States, 12 babies were named Padma between 2020 and 2025. In Spain, 25 residents are named Padma, ranked 26,114th among women, with a mean age of 51 years.
Padma is on the official records of the United States and Spain.
United States
1 in 1.8M
In the United States, 12 babies were named Padma between 2020 and 2025.
Shape drawn from US Social Security baby-name records. Padma has stayed rare in US records the whole time: no peak decade to name.
Births with a Social Security record. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration
Spain
1 in 1.8M
In Spain, 25 residents are named Padma, ranked 26,114th among women, with a mean age of 51 years.
Residents of Spain on 1 January 2025. Spain publishes how old a name’s living bearers are, not a birth series, so there is no year chart. Source: INE (Spain), Censo de Población anual, 1 January 2025
Poland
last on record 2024
Padma is not on the 2025 record for Poland, where names given fewer than 2 times in a year are withheld at source.
The count never rose above 2 in a year, too few to chart.
First names given to children born in Poland by year of birth, 2000–2025, from the PESEL population register (Ministry of Digital Affairs); exact spellings count separately (Łukasz and Lukasz are different names), names given fewer than 5 times in a year were left off the list through 2012 and fewer than 2 times from 2013, and the register also counts children born abroad, so its yearly sums run above Poland’s live births. Shares divide by the register’s own published total for the year, never by births. Source: Ministry of Digital Affairs, PESEL register (dane.gov.pl)
Not on the record in Mexico City, Argentina, Puerto Rico, England and Wales, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand and Scotland: 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 Padma deep dive
Whether you’re naming a baby or exploring your own name’s history, this is a personal letter, not a list: where Padma 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 Padma fits with your family’s names and surname.
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