Fatima
- Pronunciation
- [Fa-ti-ma]
- Gender
- Female
- Meaning
- Accustom; Daughter Of A Prophet
- Origin
- Arabic
About the Name Fatima
Fatima descends from the Arabic Fāṭimah, the personal name of Fatima bint Muhammad (c. 605–632 CE) — the daughter of the Prophet Muhammad and his first wife Khadijah, and the wife of Ali ibn Abi Talib. Fatima is one of the most-revered figures in Islam and is particularly central to Shia Muslim tradition, where she is considered one of the four "perfect women" (alongside Mary, Asiya, and Khadijah).
The name has additional Catholic significance through Our Lady of Fatima — referring to the 1917 Marian apparitions in Fatima, Portugal, where three young shepherds reported seeing the Virgin Mary on six occasions between May and October. The Fatima apparitions and the associated "Three Secrets of Fatima" became one of the most-influential 20th-century Catholic devotional traditions.
Fatima has been continuously used across Muslim-majority countries for over a millennium and across Spanish-speaking Catholic countries (especially Portugal) for over a century. The name has been continuously used in American Hispanic and Muslim communities for decades. Fatima climbed into the US top 200 girls' rank by 2008 and the top 300 since. The name's appeal is its layered Islamic-Catholic-Marian pedigree combined with three flowing syllables — the in-built religious-historical register from both major Abrahamic religions, and tonal warmth distinctive to Arabic-derived naming. The name reads as both classical-religious and contemporary American. Common nicknames Fati, Fattie, and the rare Tima each carry distinct registers; international forms include Fátima (Spanish/Portuguese, with accent), Fatime (Turkish), Fatma (Arabic alternate), and the original Arabic Fāṭimah.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Fatima
US Popularity History (2000–2025)
Annual US births named Fatima by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2006 with 1,515 girls named Fatima (girl rank #228 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #330 for girls (931 US births). That's 102 places below its 2006 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 Fatima 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 Fatima the strongest states are New York, California, Michigan.
Strongest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | New York | #154 | 982 |
| 2 | California | #222 | 1,461 |
| 3 | Michigan | #231 | 363 |
| 4 | Texas | #241 | 1,246 |
| 5 | Illinois | #243 | 418 |
| 6 | Minnesota | #273 | 199 |
| 7 | New Jersey | #289 | 264 |
| 8 | Washington | #300 | 223 |
| 9 | Virginia | #304 | 253 |
| 10 | Maryland | #320 | 178 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Fatima in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Variant Forms
Famous People Named Fatima
1 notable figure from history and culture who share the name Fatima.
- Fatima Jinnah was a famous Pakistani politician and activist and sister of Mohammed Ali Jinnah.
Looking for names like Fatima?
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 Fatima to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Fatima against today's most popular girls-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).