Norah

given name · English · Latin script

Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise

Norah is a given name, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country. It appears chiefly in English and French, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: A female given name, a pseudo-Hebrew spelling of Nora, diminutive of Eleonora or Honora.

rarermore common
  • BEBelgium1 in 8.2K◐
  • ZASouth Africa1 in 9.3K
  • NONorway1 in 11K

carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.

≈33K ●

across 9 countries

Sources
305 ●

48K records

Official registry-verified

1 in 10K ◐

France

Meaning & origin●

A female given name, a pseudo-Hebrew spelling of Nora, diminutive of Eleonora or Honora.

Sources 1

  • kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

Attested across 2 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world●

Sorted by bearers counted by national registers, records where none counts.

Where Norah is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
US United States—23,67528K rec.1 in 14K24KNorah305
NL Netherlands—10,316222 rec.—2.3KNorah31
GB United Kingdom—8,8107.6K rec.—24Norah109
FR France—6,580△3 rec.1 in 10K6.6K—3
CA Canada—5,9651K rec.—35Norah82
ZA South Africa—3,6453.6K rec.——Norah42
AU Australia—2,0891.8K rec.—6Norah79
BE Belgium#9511,894155 rec.—50Norah28
ES Spain—1,119△190 rec.1 in 45K1.1KNorah38
SE Sweden—827466 rec.1 in 12K827Norah20
NG Nigeria—655865 rec.——Norah33
AT Austria—54529 rec.—166Norah17

Roughly 24K people in United States bear this name (about 1 in 14K). Estimates project the name's share of our records onto national population, so each is only as good as the record base beside it — the Basis column gives that base; rows marked △ rest on fewer records than the estimate itself and are order-of-magnitude at best.

Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table. How that works.

Languages●

  • English52K32%
  • French30K18%
  • Swahili27K17%
  • Spanish13K8%
  • Arabic11K7%
Show as table
Languages in which the name is recorded
NameRecordsNote
English51,56532%
French29,51318%
Swahili26,55117%
Spanish13,2598%
Arabic10,8617%

Language is read off each record's context, not declared by the bearer; a share is of all records for this spelling.

Other names spelled this way◐

Norah is also recorded as 3 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • French given name48K records spelled Norah8 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, Argentina, Spain, United States

    Languages: French, Spanish, Portuguese

    Also written Noràh, Noráh, Norâh, Nôrah

  • Arabic given name13K records spelled Norah5 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, United States, Egypt

    Languages: Arabic, Maltese

    Also written Nôrãh, Norahً, ̶n̶o̶r̶a̶h̶

  • Thai given name220 records spelled Norah21 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Thailand, Laos, United States, Peru

    Languages: Thai, Lao

    Also written Noa, Mizutani, โนอาห์, โนอาร์, โนอา

49 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Over time●

01K2K3K1900195020002.2K · 2017

Show as table
Norah in SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present), United States, 1880–2025
Yearrecords
18809
188113
188213
188320
188412
188515
188612
18879
188815
18897
189011
189116
189211
189316
189413
189518
189618
189722
189811
189910
190018
190111
190216
190311
19047
190510
190612
19079
190811
19099
191012
19119
191210
191318
191421
191522
191614
191725
191822
191924
192023
192114
192220
192318
192427
192523
192611
192723
192820
192918
193013
193117
193213
193314
193415
193512
19367
193711
193815
193912
194016
194111
194223
194319
194415
194526
194621
194724
194822
194929
195022
195136
195216
195332
195419
195524
195613
195721
195835
195916
196025
196128
196224
196325
196421
196519
196619
196721
196817
196914
197016
197118
197222
197324
197423
197529
197630
197720
197823
197933
198032
198135
198227
198331
198437
198528
198630
198727
198838
198942
199038
199139
199239
199335
199431
199529
199636
199724
199842
199944
200057
200164
200296
2003303
2004476
2005558
2006591
2007689
2008666
2009959
20101,091
20111,217
20121,502
20131,725
20142,007
20152,032
20162,026
20172,156
20182,013
20191,975
20201,810
20211,791
20221,539
20231,488
20241,384
20251,191

US SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) — 146 years between 1880–2025. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.

Notable people with this name●

1850190019502000Norah Elam, b. 1878Princess Margaret of Connaught, b. 1882Norah Neilson Gray, b. 1882Jane Arbor, b. 1903Norah Lofts, b. 1904Norah Baring, b. 1905Norah O'Donnell, b. 1974Norah Jones, b. 1979Norah Jeruto, b. 1995
  • Norah Elamb. 1878GBBritish suffragist (1878-1961)
  • Princess Margaret of Connaughtb. 1882GBnot in their usual nameBritish princess; Crown Princess of Sweden as the first wife of King Gustaf VI Adolf (1882-1920)
  • Norah Neilson Grayb. 1882GBBritish artist of the Glasgow School (1882-1931)
  • Jane Arborb. 1903GBnot in their usual nameBritish novelist (1903–1994)
  • Norah Loftsb. 1904GBBritish writer (1904–1983)
  • Norah Baringb. 1905GBEnglish actress (1905-1985)
  • Norah O'Donnellb. 1974USAmerican television journalist who is currently a senior correspondent on CBS News and contributing correspondent on 60 Minutes
  • Norah Jonesb. 1979USAmerican musician (born 1979)
  • Norah Jerutob. 1995KEKenyan female steeplechase runner
  • Norah SadavaCACanadian theatre creator

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●

Attested in 85 sources across 47 countries.

Official registers attesting Norah
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex202024K#1,429
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des prénoms (1900–2024)20246.6K#212
NL NetherlandsMeertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (live per-name BRP counts, 1790-2017)—2.3K#1,250
NO NorwaySSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population)—1.7K#1,219
US United StatesSSA — National Baby Names (1880–present)20251.2K—
ES SpainINE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos)—1.1K#2,665
ES SpainINE — Nombres más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal)—1K#1,371
SE SwedenSkatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population)—827#1,948
SE SwedenSCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023)2020574—
NO NorwaySSB PxWebApi — Persons/Last names by year (StatBank tables 10501/12891)2025510—
DK DenmarkDanmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts)—347#712
CA CanadaStatistics Canada — First names at birth by sex at birth (Table 17-10-0147-01)2024258—

Reference works 4

  • 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)

These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.

Register rows as of the 2026-09-12 data build · 874 rows in the corpus for this spelling.

Frequently asked questions

How common is the name Norah?
We estimate roughly 33 thousand people bear Norah (counting its spellings and scripts) across 9 countries in our records.
In which country does Norah have the most bearers?
We estimate about 24 thousand people bear Norah in the United States, more than in any other country in our records, where it is most often spelled norah.
How common is Norah compared with other names?
In Bolivia, Norah is the 428th most common given name of 14,901 given names recorded there.
Is Norah a male or female name?
Norah 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.
What does the name Norah mean?
Recorded meaning: A female given name, a pseudo-Hebrew spelling of Nora, diminutive of Eleonora or Honora.
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/norah

The 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. Bulk access and licensing.

About this data

● measured from records◐ inferred from the name graph○ machine-generated

Data snapshot . Figures are rebuilt periodically and will change.

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, “Norah” — the 428th most common given name in Bolivia. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.

See how Norah parses inside a full name →