Zara: Meaning of Baby Name Zara

About the Name Zara

Zara has multiple proposed origins. The most credible Arabic line connects Zara to zahrah meaning "flower," "blossom," or "radiant beauty." A separate Hebrew line connects Zara to a feminine form of Zerah (the son of Judah and Tamar in Genesis 38). A third English-language reading connects Zara to a contracted form of Sarah or Sara.

The name has been used continuously in Arabic-speaking Muslim communities for centuries, and gained broader English-language recognition through the British royal family — most notably Zara Tindall (born Zara Anne Elizabeth Phillips, 1981, daughter of Princess Anne and granddaughter of Queen Elizabeth II, an Olympic equestrian medalist for Great Britain).

The contemporary American Zara surge is also reinforced by the global Spanish fast-fashion brand Zara (founded 1975 in Galicia, Spain, by Amancio Ortega), which has made the name visually familiar across global retail. Zara climbed from outside the US top 500 in 2000 to the US top 200 girls' rank by 2014 and the top 100 by 2022. The name's appeal sits in three contemporary American naming preferences: the multi-cultural Arabic-Hebrew-English etymological flexibility, the compact two-syllable structure with the distinctive Z opening, and the modern fashion-brand cultural anchor. Common nicknames are scarce since the name is already short — Z and the rare Zaza each occasionally appear; the alternate spellings Zarah (with the H) has its own SSA tracking. International forms include Zara (Italian/Spanish, identical), the original Arabic Zahra, and the related Sarah/Zerah family.

Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.

Quick Facts About Zara

1,165

Arabic baby names in our dictionary

466

Arabic female names

37

4-letter Z-names in our dictionary

121

Z-female names total

2005–2025

years of US SSA records (21 total)

18,324

total US births named Zara (all years)

US Popularity History (2005–2025)

➖ Steady: Zara edged up 5 places in the US girls ranking over the last 5 years (#217 in 2020 → #212 in 2025).

Annual US births named Zara by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2022 with 1,438 girls named Zara (girl rank #201 that year).

Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #212 for girls (1,432 US births). That's 11 places below its 2022 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.

Where in the US Is Zara 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 Zara the strongest states are Delaware, District of Columbia, Maryland.

Strongest girls-name states

#	State	Avg rank	Births
1	Delaware	#108	35
2	District of Columbia	#119	66
3	Maryland	#147	340
4	New Jersey	#151	474
5	North Dakota	#177	21
6	Virginia	#179	423
7	Connecticut	#181	165
8	New York	#181	850
9	Pennsylvania	#190	558
10	Rhode Island	#191	29

Weakest girls-name states

#	State	Avg rank	Births
1	Louisiana	#599	90
2	Alabama	#559	86
3	Mississippi	#539	31
4	Kentucky	#471	89
5	Arkansas	#469	50
6	Tennessee	#460	165
7	Nebraska	#452	22
8	Iowa	#434	69
9	Kansas	#432	54
10	Wisconsin	#418	142

Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Zara in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.

Variant Forms

Name	Meaning	Gender	Origin
Zahara	Swahili And Muslim Name Meaning "Flower."	Female	African
Zahra	Swahili And Muslim Name Meaning "Flower."	Female	African

Looking for names like Zara?

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Compare Zara to Other Popular Names

Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Zara 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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Zara vs Sophia 169,709 births since 2014

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Zara vs Ava 157,356 births since 2014

Zara vs Charlotte 151,872 births since 2014

Zara vs Mia 149,779 births since 2014

Zara vs Amelia 142,728 births since 2014

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