Norah
- Pronunciation
- [No-rah]
- Gender
- Female
- Meaning
- Light
- Origin
- Greek
About the Name Norah
Norah is the alternate English spelling of Nora (see separate entry on Nora for the multiple proposed origins, including Italian Eleanor short form, Irish Honora, and Hebrew Norah meaning "light"). The Norah spelling with the H is the historically older Irish form, while the Nora spelling without the H is the more common modern American form.
The two spellings are tracked separately by SSA and represent the same underlying name. The Norah spelling carries a slight Irish-cultural register, while Nora reads as more international/cosmopolitan. The single most influential modern bearer of the Norah spelling is American jazz singer Norah Jones (born Geethali Norah Jones Shankar, 1979, daughter of Indian sitarist Ravi Shankar), whose 2002 album Come Away with Me won eight Grammy Awards including Album of the Year — making the Norah spelling globally recognized for the first time.
Norah's American climb has been substantial: the name climbed from outside the US top 500 in 2000 to the US top 200 girls' rank by 2014 and the top 150 since. The name's appeal is its layered international elegance combined with two short syllables and the distinctive H-spelling that signals slight Irish or vintage register. The name reads as both classical and contemporary. Other notable bearers include British playwright Norah Lofts and contemporary American journalist Norah O'Donnell (CBS Evening News anchor). Common nicknames are scarce since the name is already short — Nori and the rare Nor each occasionally appear; the alternate spelling Nora (without the H) has its own SSA tracking and remains more common. International forms include Nora (English without H), Norah (Norwegian, identical), and the related Irish Honora and Italian Eleonora.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Norah
US Popularity History (2003–2025)
Annual US births named Norah by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2017 with 2,156 girls named Norah (girl rank #137 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #262 for girls (1,191 US births). That's 125 places below its 2017 peak.
Source: US Social Security Administration. Limitations: US birth-certificate data only; names appearing fewer than 5 times in a given year are suppressed for privacy; spelling variants are counted separately. For names that ranked outside the US top 100 before year 2000, only the years they reached the top 100 are shown — the chart may have gaps for less-popular historical names.
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Where in the US Is Norah Most Popular?
Average girl-name rank within each state across 2016–2025 SSA records. A lower number means the name appears closer to the top of that state's girls-name rankings — a per-capita measure that isn't biased toward large states. For Norah the strongest states are Vermont, Rhode Island, Wisconsin.
Strongest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Vermont | #72 | 34 |
| 2 | Rhode Island | #101 | 79 |
| 3 | Wisconsin | #110 | 450 |
| 4 | Minnesota | #116 | 434 |
| 5 | Iowa | #119 | 258 |
| 6 | Washington | #127 | 482 |
| 7 | Maine | #127 | 89 |
| 8 | North Dakota | #129 | 82 |
| 9 | South Dakota | #132 | 73 |
| 10 | New Hampshire | #132 | 101 |
Weakest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nevada | #317 | 68 |
| 2 | Mississippi | #314 | 78 |
| 3 | Arizona | #306 | 227 |
| 4 | New Mexico | #294 | 33 |
| 5 | New Jersey | #263 | 292 |
| 6 | Texas | #261 | 1,151 |
| 7 | Florida | #259 | 656 |
| 8 | Georgia | #249 | 414 |
| 9 | New York | #241 | 676 |
| 10 | California | #240 | 1,348 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Norah in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Looking for names like Norah?
A dedicated page with 60+ related names — spelling variants, rhymes, alliterations, same-origin matches, and shared meaning concepts — lives at its own URL so each kind of similarity gets a deeper treatment than fits here.
Compare Norah to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Norah against today's most popular girls-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).
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