Zara
given name · Latin script
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Zara is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country, where it is the 40th most common given name. Recorded meaning: From Arabic zhara, meaning “blooming flower”.
- SESweden1 in 147as Sara(measured from records)
- ILIsrael≈1 in 186as שרה
- AUAustralia≈1 in 221as Sarah
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 Zara 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.
- United States (measured from records)
- #76 (measured from records)
- 9 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 655 (measured from records)
- 1 in 147 (inferred from the name graph)
874,128 named Sarah, 2020
of 15M given names
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Sweden, as Sara
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled Sarah in US United States, GB United Kingdom, AU Australia and 3 more, שרה in IL Israel and Sara in SE Sweden.
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)
From Arabic zhara, meaning “blooming flower”.
Sources 1
- Irish first names
Attested across 2 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Zara 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | #40 | 874,128as Sarah | 1 in 381 | 873K | Sarah | 655 |
| BR Brazil | — | 304,917as Sara | 1 in 694 | 305K | — | 11 |
| GB United Kingdom | #21 | ≈290,000 est. | ≈1 in 228 | 666 | Sarah | 414 |
| ID Indonesia | #189 | ≈260,000 est. | ≈1 in 1K | listed | Sarah | 216 |
| NG Nigeria | #54 | ≈260,000 est. | ≈1 in 825 | — | Sarah | 119 |
| ES Spain | #238 | 179,954as Sara | 1 in 278 | 180K | Sarah | 184 |
| AU Australia | #16 | ≈120,000 est. | ≈1 in 221 | 393 | Sarah | 342 |
| SE Sweden | #7 | 69,262as Sara | 1 in 147 | 69K | Sara | 170 |
| IL Israel | #11 | ≈47,000 est. | ≈1 in 186 | 589 | שרה | 122 |
874,128 people counted by Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex, 2020. 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: Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; ONS — Baby names England and Wales (2024); CBS Israel — Names given to babies (1949–present); Australian national given names (aggregated state BDM); IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror); INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos); Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (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)
Zara 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 English, Arabic: blossom or flower; Hebrew: the bright dawn; see Sarah.
as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
In Italian, oriundo da cidade dálmata de Zara (Zadar)
as a nameDicionário dos sobrenomes italianos
agricultor; farmer
as a nameDicionario Sefaradi De SobrenomesDictionary Of Sephardic Surnames Inclusive Cristaos-Novos, Conversos, Marranos, Italianos,…
In Romanian, subst. zara ; cf. si Zara fiul lui Simeon (Biblie, Numeri 26,13). 1. Zara pren. (1ntr-un pomelnic din Bucuresti) ; fam., olt. ; Zara, ard., 1726 (Pas) ; - Ignat (Sd XI 77). 2. Cf. Zarce, olt. (16 B VI 360). Zaranda v. Sm ar a gd 3. Zarce v. Zara 2. Zarna v. Zfrna 3.
as a nameDictionar Onomastic Rominesc
In English, prov, city, Spain; city, Mexico
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
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)
- Zara Yaqobb. 1399ETEmperor of Ethiopia
- Zara Cullyb. 1892USactress (1892-1978)
- Zara Dolukhanovab. 1918RUSoviet Armenian mezzo-soprano singer (1918-2007)
- Zara Nelsovab. 1918USCanadian musician (1918–2002)
- Zara Whitesb. 1968NLDutch pornographic actress and political activist
- Zara Tindallb. 1981GBBritish Olympic equestrian; daughter of Anne, Princess Royal
- Zara Taylorb. 1983CACanadian actor and singer
- Zara Phythianb. 1984GBBritish actress
- Pfeiffer Georgib. 2000GBnot in their usual nameEnglish cyclist
- Zara Rutherfordb. 2002BEBelgian-British pilot
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).
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 131 sources across 62 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 13K | #2,104 |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 1.7K | #1,190 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 1.4K | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror) | 2022 | 1.3K | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 1.3K | #6,839 |
| SE Sweden | SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) | 2020 | 1K | — |
| ES Spain | INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos) | — | 989 | #2,870 |
| ES Spain | INE — Nombres más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal) | — | 919 | #1,485 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Nomes (census name API) | — | 826 | #10,384 |
| GB United Kingdom | ONS — Baby names England and Wales (2024) | 2024 | 666 | #69 |
| AU Australia | Australian national given names (aggregated state BDM) | 2023 | 393 | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | 2020 | 336 | — |
Reference works 8
- 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
- Ismlar.com — Uzbek given-name dictionary (meanings, gender, origin)
- 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 Zara mean, and where does it come from?
- From Arabic zhara, meaning “blooming flower”. Recorded by Irish first names.
- Is Zara a male or female name?
- Zara is a female name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
- In which country does Zara have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 874 thousand people named Sarah, more than in any other country we hold.
- Where is Zara most common?
- No national register we hold counts the spelling Zara itself. The densest figure for its family of spellings is Sweden's: the national register counts about 1 in 147 people named Sara.
- How common is the name Zara?
- In the United States, the national register counted 874,128 people named Sarah in 2020, about 1 in 381 residents.
- How common is Zara compared with other names?
- In the United States, Zara is the 40th most common given name of 2,815,431 given names recorded there.
- What are other forms of the name Zara?
- In the etymology graph, Zaira and Zaharinka are forms of the same name in other languages.
What do you want to know about Zara?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/zaraThe same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. Rate-limited for casual use; a free API key gives 1,000 requests a day, and bulk access is licensed separately.
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, “Zara” — the 40th most common given name in United States. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.