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The first name 
Akira

Akira is a female first name. In some cases it's also given to boys.

Akira is a well-known but special name!

Akira is a well-known name in the US, but is still special. It is currently only given to every ten thousandth girl, and therefore ranks at 1,025 in the SmartGenius statistics. This means there are 1,024 girls names that are more common, but also tens of thousands that are much rarer. If you polled the whole US population – children, adults and seniors – you’d find less than one in 10,000 to be named Akira.

You won't believe all there is 
to discover about the name
 
Akira

What does the name 
Akira mean?

Akira is a Japanese name, predominantly given to boys in contrast to the US. Using Japanese kanji, it can be written in various options with different meanings. Akira can mean ‘bright’, ‘light’, ‘good’, ‘joy’, or ‘clear’, for example.

In Thai, the name Akira has a different... meaning according to the characters used: 'sun' or 'sunlight'. There, Akira is a unisex name.

Akira -
special, but at home in many states

You may not know anyone named Akira, but there’s a good chance you live in the same state as someone with that name. In fact, 36 states are home to women and girls named Akira. (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 women and girls named Akira living in one state or another. If your name is Akira 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 Georgia, which has the most people named Akira relative to the population, you still have to ask 10,640 women and girls their names before you hear Akira as an answer just once.

Akira has 5 letters 
and begins with an A

Well, you might say, you probably figured that out yourself! But what you might not know is: The letter A is the most popular first letter for girls’ names. 11.8% of all common girls’ names in the US start with this letter. The second most common first letter in girls' names is S.

With five letters, the name Akira 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.

That means that if 11.8% of all girls' names start with an A, this initial letter occurs over three times as often as all other letters on average. And, by the way, of all the girls' names that begin with the letter A, the name Ashley is the most common.

Other names with 
A, k, i, r and a

If you take all the letters in the name Akira – A, k, i, r and a – and put them together again, you can form other names, such as Akari or others.

With hands, flags and sounds 
How to say Akira

If your name is Akira 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...

This is how you spell the name Akira

So that everyone really understands you when you have to spell the name Akira, you can simply say:

Apple

Koala

Igloo

Rocket

Apple

This is how the name Akira is spelled in the NATO phonetic alphabet

The NATO alphabet often helps people spell words on the phone or radio when there are communication problems.

How do you write Akira in Braille?

Braille is made up of dots, which the blind and visually impaired can feel to read words.

Akira

Akira

You want to tell a deaf person that your name is Akira

Just use American Sign Language!

The name Akira is particularly colorful in the Semaphore flag signaling system!

These flags are used for maritime communication - each flag represents a letter.

A
K
I
R
A

Have you ever waved the name Akira

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.

A
K
I
R
A

Beeping like crazy...

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. Akira sounds like this: