Dara
given name · Latin script
Meaning: halo. Comp. Dara (P) (m.)
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ˈdæɹə/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Dara is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in India than in any other country.
- INIndia1 in 11Kas Dhara(measured from records)
- NGNigeria≈1 in 35K
- NONorway1 in 54K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than Dara itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- India (measured from records)
- 6 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 426 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 35K (inferred from the name graph)
123,851 named Dhara
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Nigeria, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
14 other spellings are counted as the same name:
Locally spelled Dhara in IN India and ধর in BD Bangladesh.
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
halo. Comp. Dara (P) (m.)
Sources 1
- A Dictionary of Muslim Names
Attested across 8 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Dara counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| IN India | #471 | 123,851as Dhara | 1 in 11K | 124K | Dhara | 208 |
| BD Bangladesh | #651 | ≈100,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.6K | — | ধর | 67 |
| NG Nigeria | — | ≈6,100 est. | ≈1 in 35K | listed | Dara | 49 |
| BR Brazil | — | 3,346as Dala | 1 in 63K | 12K | — | 4 |
| CN China | — | ≈2,400 est. | ≈1 in 581K | — | Dara | 19 |
| PL Poland | — | 1,750as Data | 1 in 22K | 933 | — | 3 |
| AR Argentina | — | 986as Fara | 1 in 46K | 986 | — | 1 |
| NO Norway | — | 102 | 1 in 54K | 134 | Dara | 10 |
123,851 people counted by Instate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls. Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: Instate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls; IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname); IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror); RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national); dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames); SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population). Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Other recorded senses(measured from records)
Dara is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In Arabic, halo of the moon
as a nameA Dictionary of Muslim Names
In German, weibl. Vom., bulgarische Kurzform von
as a nameDUDEN Lexikon der Vornamen
y b good, nice.
as a nameMuslim baby names (our 2,000 meaningful and beautiful names for boys and girls) English-Urdu with Roman
In Arabic, possessor, sovereign. Comp. Dara (A) (f.). Darius I: king of Persia (521-486 B.C.).8’ Dara Shikoh (1615-59): son ot Mughal emperor Shah Jahan
as a nameA Dictionary of Muslim Names
In Kurdish, Ruler, king, powerful leader and wise governor
as a wordkurdi.sh Kurdish personal names dictionary
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Dara Shikohb. 1615INIndian prince
- Dara Singhb. 1928INIndian professional wrestler and actor (1928-2012)
- Dara Sedakab. 1963USAmerican singer
- Dara Torresb. 1967USAmerican swimmer
- Dara Khosrowshahib. 1969IRIranian businessman
- Dara Gottfriedb. 1970USGilbert Gottfried's wife
- Dara Ó Briainb. 1972IEIrish comedian and television presenter
- Dara Howellb. 1994CACanadian freestyle skier
- Dara O'Sheab. 1999IEIrish association football player (born 1999)
- Dara TaylorUSAmerican composer
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
How to address them(machine-generated)
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 101 sources across 50 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| BR Brazil | IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror) | 2022 | 12K | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 12K | #1,528 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Nomes (census name API) | — | 11K | #2,020 |
| IN India | Instate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls | — | 6.9K | #1,257 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | 2020 | 592 | — |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames) | 2026 | 161 | — |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names) | — | 161 | #19,646 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames) | 2026 | 157 | — |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names) | — | 157 | #20,516 |
| AR Argentina | RENAPER — Nombres de nacimientos (2012–present) | 2024 | 139 | #634 |
| NO Norway | SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population) | — | 134 | #6,338 |
| NO Norway | SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population) | — | 106 | #7,456 |
Reference works 7
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
- Cognomix.it (Nomix s.r.l.) — Italian surname origin dictionary
- Ethiopian name tokens (GitHub lehagere/ethiopian-names, 40/60 condominium list)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Dara mean, and where does it come from?
- halo. Comp. Dara (P) (m.) Recorded by A Dictionary of Muslim Names.
- Is Dara a male or female name?
- Dara is recorded for both men and women. We don't publish a percentage split: a record's gender belongs to the person and is attached to every given name on that record, so names in cultures where a name string also carries a parent's or spouse's given name pick up large cross-gender counts.
- How do you pronounce Dara?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈdæɹə/ (IPA) for English.
- What are other forms of the name Dara?
- In the etymology graph, Daragh, Darach and Dáire are forms of the same name in other languages.
- In which country does Dara have the most bearers?
- In India, the national register counted about 124 thousand people named Dhara, more than in any other country we hold.
- How common is the name Dara?
- In Norway, the national register counted 102 people named Dara, about 1 in 54 thousand residents.
- How common is Dara compared with other names?
- In India, Dara is the 471st most common surname of 1,492,515 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Dara?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/daraThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Dara” — the 471st most common surname in India. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.