Ora

Where Ora comes from

* (given name): First appeared in the 19th century when similar sounding names like Cora, Dora and Nora were in fashion. Possibly shortened from Aurelia, sometimes spelled Ora Lee, or, Aura Lea, in the American civil war song. * (Italian commune): Borrowed from Italian Ora
— Wiktionary's entry for Ora
  • Vowel-ended
Along the way
  1. 1880
    First SSA year
    Already #114 among girls — 149 babies in the first year on record.
  2. 1881
    Peak, #104
    191 babies named Ora — more than any year before or since.
  3. 1893
    Ora Carew born
    American actress
  4. 1930
    Ora Namir born
    Israeli diplomat
  5. 1965
    The fade
    The first year with half the peak's births — down to #1,097.
In the dictionary
  • A diminutive of the female given name Aurelia, from Latin, variant of Aura. Mainly used in the U.S.A. in the latter half of the 19th century.
Namesakes
  • Ora Namir · Israeli diplomat, 1930–2019
  • Ora Carew · American actress, 1893–1955
  • Ora Kedem · Austrian-Israeli chemist, 1924–2026
  • Ora Washington · American tennis player, 1898–1971
  • Ora Goldstein · Israeli paralympic competitor, 1944–2022

Sources: the origin note and dictionary entry are quoted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0); the namesakes come from Wikidata (CC0); the milestones are worked out from the SSA record.