Farrah: Meaning of Baby Name Farrah

About the Name Farrah

Farrah is an Arabic name meaning "happiness" or "joy," carrying a bright, cheerful resonance that has always been central to its appeal. The name also became widely familiar in the English-speaking world through twentieth-century popular culture, and its sunny meaning combined with its soft, glamorous sound has given it broad cross-cultural reach, equally at home in its Arabic heritage and in modern Western use.

The two syllables, Fa-rrah, give it a smooth, warm sound, and its gentle ending reads as feminine and stylish. The name has a glamorous yet approachable feel, the kind of upbeat, fashionable name that appeals to parents looking for something cheerful and a little chic. Its meaning rooted in joy gives it a lightness that suits its glamorous associations, making it feel bright and optimistic without being frivolous.

Farrah first entered the US Social Security top-1000 in 2010 and reached its peak in 2011 at rank #542, remaining on the chart through 2016, when it ranked #960, with 3,068 top-1000 births in total. Recorded variants include Fara, Farah, and Fayre. Its concentrated early-2010s run marks Farrah as a name of that particular stylistic moment, when soft, glamorous girls' names were enjoying renewed favor and parents were drawn to bright, cheerful names with a touch of vintage star quality.

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

Quick Facts About Farrah

1,165

Arabic baby names in our dictionary

466

Arabic female names

158

6-letter F-names in our dictionary

221

F-female names total

2010–2016

years of US SSA records (7 total)

3,068

total US births named Farrah (all years)

US Popularity History (2010–2016)

📉 Falling fast: Farrah dropped 418 places in the US girls ranking over the last 5 years (#542 in 2011 → #960 in 2016).

Annual US births named Farrah by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2011 with 537 girls named Farrah (girl rank #542 that year).

Where it stands today: in 2016, ranked #960 for girls (282 US births). That's 418 places below its 2011 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 Farrah 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 Farrah the strongest states are Wisconsin, Minnesota, New Jersey.

Strongest girls-name states

#	State	Avg rank	Births
1	Wisconsin	#688	21
2	Minnesota	#729	36
3	New Jersey	#740	40
4	Michigan	#755	54
5	Louisiana	#759	45
6	Missouri	#760	29
7	Tennessee	#802	44
8	Alabama	#808	16
9	Pennsylvania	#823	69
10	Massachusetts	#837	17

Weakest girls-name states

#	State	Avg rank	Births
1	New York	#1,170	74
2	Florida	#965	48
3	Virginia	#946	37
4	Indiana	#885	28
5	Washington	#868	22
6	Georgia	#857	57
7	Massachusetts	#837	17
8	Pennsylvania	#823	69
9	Alabama	#808	16
10	Tennessee	#802	44

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

Variant Forms

Name	Meaning	Gender	Origin
Fara	Traveler.	Female	English
Farah	Joy	Female	Arabic
Fayre	Beautiful	Female	English

Looking for names like Farrah?

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.

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Compare Farrah to Other Popular Names

Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Farrah against today's most popular girls-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).

Farrah vs Olivia 210,124 births since 2014

Farrah vs Emma 202,477 births since 2014

Farrah vs Sophia 169,709 births since 2014

Farrah vs Isabella 158,431 births since 2014

Farrah vs Ava 157,356 births since 2014

Farrah vs Charlotte 151,872 births since 2014

Farrah vs Mia 149,779 births since 2014

Farrah vs Amelia 142,728 births since 2014

Compare to a different name →