The modern American name Zaire is taken from the name of a country in Africa, called the Democratic Republic of Congo since 1997. As a given name, it is used since the 1990s.
Zaire is a first name for boys, occasionally also given to girls.
The name Zaire isn’t among the current fashionable names in our top 10 stats, but nonetheless, it’s still very popular and common. In our SmartGenius ranking of all boys names, Zaire ranks 634. Recently, out of every 10,000 newborn boys, approximately 2 were named Zaire. If you polled the whole US population – children, adults and seniors – you’d find less than one in 10,000 to be named Zaire.
The modern American name Zaire is taken from the name of a country in Africa, called the Democratic Republic of Congo since 1997. As a given name, it is used since the 1990s.
Zaire is believed... to be derived from 'nzadi o nzere', which is Kikongo for 'river swallowing rivers'. This refers to the Congo River, the third-largest river in the world.
Zaire is a fairly recent phenomenon. In the past, the name wasn't really on the radar of expectant parents. Then, unexpectedly, Zaire cried out for attention, reaching its peak in popularity at #465 in our SmartGenius statistics in the year 2022. People over 50 probably didn't have classmates named Zaire, for there were many years in which not a single parent chose this first name for their son. Although it also has never been in the top 100 of most popular first names, Zaire seems to have been in vogue for a while, especially since the beginning of the new millennium.
In years where the graph has no value, the name Zaire was given less than five times or even none at all in the entire USA.
You may not know anyone named Zaire, but there’s a good chance you live in the same state as someone with that name. In fact, 31 states are home to men and boys named Zaire. (To be fair, a given name is only included in a state’s official statistics if there are at least five people with that name living in that state – so it’s entirely possible that there are still a few men and boys named Zaire living in one state or another. If your name is Zaire and you live outside of the states highlighted on the map, please let us know so we can refine our statistics even further). And while the first name is present in many states, it is still not one of the popular ones. In New Jersey, which has the most people named Zaire relative to the population, you still have to ask 8,050 men and boys their names before you hear Zaire as an answer just once.
Well, you might say, you probably figured that out yourself! But what you might not know is: The letter Z is quite rare as a first letter for boys' names: only 2.4% of all common boys' names in the US begin with Z. The most common first letters of boys' names, by the way, are J, A and D, while X, U and Q are the least common initials of boys' names.
With five letters, the name Zaire is comparatively short. In fact, 17.0% of all common first names in the US consist of exactly five letters. Only 7% of all first names are even shorter, while 75% have more than five letters. On average, first names in the US (not counting hyphenated names) are 6.5 letters long. There are no significant differences between boys' and girls' names.
Therefore: As 2.4% of all boys' names begin with a Z, this initial letter is less common than the other letters on average. Interesting detail: of all the names that begin with Z, Zachary is the most common.
If your name is Zaire and someone asks after your name, you can of course just tell them what it is. But sometimes that isn't so easy - what if it's too loud, and you don't understand them well? Or what if the other person is so far away that you can see them but not hear them? In these situations, you can communicate your name in so many other ways: you call spell it, sign it, or even use a flag to wave it...
So that everyone really understands you when you have to spell the name Zaire, you can simply say:
Zebra
Apple
Igloo
Rocket
Elephant
Braille is made up of dots, which the blind and visually impaired can feel to read words.
Zaire
Zaire
Just use American Sign Language!
These flags are used for maritime communication - each flag represents a letter.
Z
A
I
R
E
In the navy, sailors of two ships might wave flags to each other to send messages. A sailor holds two flags in specific positions to represent different letters.
Z
A
I
R
E
In Morse code, letters and other characters are represented only by a series of short and long tones. For example, a short tone followed by a long tone stands for the letter A. Zaire sounds like this:
