Names of Iran IR

National Organization for Civil Registration — National Given-Name Frequencies (Sahim naming system) records فاطمه as the commonest given name in Iran; the names that most distinguish Iran from the rest of the world are محمد, علي and زهرا.

Written in Persian, Azerbaijani, Kurdish.

Population
85M
Official registers
2
Name forms recorded
114K
BBuilt from 2 official registers (2026), 113,754 name forms in our corpus, 29 cited works.

At least one official register, plus a written account of the naming system.

How names work in Iran

5 naming traditions are in use in Iran, listed in the order of the country's languages. They are separate systems, not variants of one, and each has its own page.

The most common names in Iran

Counts everyone resident in the country · authority tier 1
National Organization for Civil Registration — National Given-Name Frequencies (Sahim naming system), 2026 — 6,489 given names counted over residents, girls only, as the register publishes them.
#NameBearers recordedOur rank
1فاطمه4.3M3
2زهرا2.9M4
3مریم1.8M—
4معصومه1.3M10
5زینب977K—
6رقیه716K—
7لیلا619K—
8خدیجه619K—
9طاهره401K39
10صغری366K—
11نرگس362K56
12سارا313K74
13الهام272K49
14ربابه255K—
15شهربانو249K—
16بتول237K—
17راضیه234K—
18هاجر234K—
19ریحانه233K—
20مینا227K—

Where the two lists disagree

23 of National Organization for Civil Registration — National Given-Name Frequencies (Sahim naming system)'s top 25 given names sit five or more places away in our record corpus. Neither ranking is wrong; they count different people.

National Organization for Civil Registration — National Given-Name Frequencies (Sahim naming system) 2026Across all recordsفاطمه: 1 → 31. فاطمه3زهرا: 2 → 42. زهرا4مریم: 3 → not ranked · not in our corpus’s top ranks for this country3. مریمnot rankedمعصومه: 4 → 10 · ranks lower across all records4. معصومه10زینب: 5 → not ranked · not in our corpus’s top ranks for this country5. زینبnot rankedرقیه: 6 → not ranked · not in our corpus’s top ranks for this country6. رقیهnot rankedلیلا: 7 → not ranked · not in our corpus’s top ranks for this country7. لیلاnot rankedخدیجه: 8 → not ranked · not in our corpus’s top ranks for this country8. خدیجهnot rankedطاهره: 9 → 39 · ranks lower across all records9. طاهره39صغری: 10 → not ranked · not in our corpus’s top ranks for this country10. صغریnot rankedنرگس: 11 → 56 · ranks lower across all records11. نرگس56سارا: 12 → 74 · ranks lower across all records12. سارا74الهام: 13 → 49 · ranks lower across all records13. الهام49ربابه: 14 → not ranked · not in our corpus’s top ranks for this country14. ربابهnot rankedشهربانو: 15 → not ranked · not in our corpus’s top ranks for this country15. شهربانوnot rankedبتول: 16 → not ranked · not in our corpus’s top ranks for this country16. بتولnot rankedراضیه: 17 → not ranked · not in our corpus’s top ranks for this country17. راضیهnot rankedهاجر: 18 → not ranked · not in our corpus’s top ranks for this country18. هاجرnot rankedریحانه: 19 → not ranked · not in our corpus’s top ranks for this country19. ریحانهnot rankedمینا: 20 → not ranked · not in our corpus’s top ranks for this country20. میناnot rankedآمنه: 21 → not ranked · not in our corpus’s top ranks for this country21. آمنهnot rankedفرزانه: 22 → not ranked · not in our corpus’s top ranks for this country22. فرزانهnot rankedفریبا: 23 → not ranked · not in our corpus’s top ranks for this country23. فریباnot rankedنسرین: 24 → not ranked · not in our corpus’s top ranks for this country24. نسرینnot rankedمحبوبه: 25 → 72 · ranks lower across all records25. محبوبه72
Hover a line for what is available to explain that row.
National Organization for Civil Registration — National Given-Name Frequencies (Sahim naming system), 2026 on the left; every record we hold for Iran on the right. A dashed line means the name is not in our top ranks for this country at all.

The register counts one population in one year — everyone it enumerates, once. Our corpus counts records: historical registers going back decades, the diaspora, business and place records, and several generations of births. A name that was common two generations ago outranks a name common today; a name whose spelling scatters across sources (diacritics dropped, transliterated differently) loses ground, because only its dominant spelling is ranked.

Characteristic of Iran

Not the most common names — the most distinctive ones. A name appears here when Iran holds a larger share of its bearers than the world does, weighted by how much of the country's whole name distribution it accounts for.

محمدفاطمهعليزهرارضامهديمريمعليرضااحمدمعصومهمحمدرضامحسنسعيدسيدالهمجيدمرتضيجوادمحمودزينب
Sized by how much of the difference between Iran's name distribution and the world's this name accounts for. Hover for its share here against its share worldwide.(measured from records)

Scripts & spelling

Names in Iran are written in Arabic (100%), measured over the spellings our corpus records for this country.

تهرانsurname(measured from records)
محمدgiven name(measured from records)
عليgiven name(measured from records)
فاطمهgiven name(measured from records)
زادهsurname(measured from records)
The best-attested names in Iran, in the spelling our records use there. Where a Latin spelling is also attested it is shown beneath — a spelling from the corpus, not a machine romanisation.

Countries whose names look alike

Measured as the overlap between each country's top 300 given-name forms, weighted by how common each is — the fuzzy-set approach of Lauc (2024), on a truncated inventory.

Registers & sources

Official registers

Cited works

Behind this page's own account — its one-line answer, its explanation of why the rankings differ, and the notes on its registers. Each naming tradition cites its own sources on its page. Not yet checked against onomastic literature.

About this data

Official figures are reproduced from the register named beside them, at the year named beside them, and are never combined across registers. The "across all records" ranking counts records in our own corpus — historical registers, the diaspora, business and place records — and is not a population count. Bearer estimates are omitted where a name accounts for more than a quarter of a country's records, because the estimate is not defensible there. Names listed by reference works and licensed name dictionaries are cited as attesting a name; their figures are not published.

Data snapshot: 2026-10-09.

Questions

What is the most common given name in Iran?
فاطمه, according to National Organization for Civil Registration — National Given-Name Frequencies (Sahim naming system) (2026), with 4,332,228 bearers recorded among girls.
Why do sources disagree about the commonest name in Iran?
Because they count different people. National Organization for Civil Registration — National Given-Name Frequencies (Sahim naming system) (2026) counts one population once, and its commonest given name is فاطمه. Our corpus counts every record we hold — historical registers, the diaspora, decades of births — and its commonest is محمد. Both are on this page, each with its denominator.
Is there one naming system in Iran?
No — 5 are described on this page (Persian, Tajik, Pashtun and Afghan, Azerbaijani, Kurdish), and they are separate systems rather than variants of one.

Cite this page: Mondonomo, “Names of Iran”, https://mondonomo.ai/names/IR (data snapshot 2026-10-09). Official figures from National Organization for Civil Registration — National Given-Name Frequencies (Sahim naming system).