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The first name 
Tara

Tara is a female first name. In very rare cases it is also used for boys.

Tara is a common name for girls!

The name Tara 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 girls names, Tara ranks 916. Recently, out of every 10,000 newborn girls, approximately 2 were named Tara. In the entire USA, approximately 172,370 people – children, adults and seniors – currently bear the name Tara. That is 0.05 % of all living Americans.

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

What does the name 
Tara mean?

Tara is a name with two different origins: In Sanskrit, it means ‘star’, and in English, it possibly stands for ‘elevated place’. In the US, Tara was very popular during the 1970s.

The English meaning comes from... the Hill of Tara, 'Teamhair' in Irish. It is a hill near Dublin, that served as an inauguration place for Irish kings in the Middle Ages.

Tara -
carrying the 80s and 90s into our century

This was a real surprise! Tara is a name that has been around for a long time, but only really took off at the end of the 20th century. According to our SmartGenius statistics, it reached its highest rank at #34 in the year 1977, when 7,220 parents chose this name for their newborn daughter. This made Tara much more popular than in previous generations, where it was so rare for several years that it was not even recorded in the statistics. Now, this name seems to have found its place and has established itself in the beginning of the 21st century as well.

In years where the graph has no value, the name Tara was given less than five times or even none at all in the entire USA.

Tara - a popular player in the midfield

In 2022, Tara ranked 956 in our SmartGenius statistics. In absolute figures, this means it was given to baby girls a total of 237 times. No one knows what names (or combinations of numbers and letters) will be popular 50 years from now, but given its consistent popularity, there is a good chance that Tara will remain a universally popular name.

Tara -
very special and well known across the entire USA

Everyone knows her, everyone loves her and still she’s different from the mainstream: Tara occurs in every single state of the U.S. This may sound quite unspectacular at first, but in fact, of the more than 50,000 different female first names that occur in the USA, just 537 are recorded in each individual state, so the name Tara is definitely something very special. However, at the same time, since the name does not appear in the top 100 most common first names in any single state, Tara is not one of those names that one encounters in every neighbourhood, but stands out from the crowd, is noticeable and special without being strange or unknown. From Alaska to Florida, a total of 172,348 women and girls of all generations bear the name Tara – that is one in 895. However, there are considerable regional differences – the name is far more popular than average in Alaska, where one in 477 women and girls is called Tara, while it is particularly rare in Texas, where you have to ask an average of 1,357 women for their name to get Tara as an answer once.

Tara has 4 letters 
and begins with a T

Well, you might say, you probably figured that out yourself! But what you might not know is: The letter T is a quite popular first letter for girls' names. Because: 6.3% of all common girls’ names in the US begin with this letter. By the way, the most common first letters for girls’ names are A, S and M.

With four letters, the name Tara is shorter than most other given names. In fact, only 5.5% of all common first names in the US consist of exactly four letters. Just 1.2% of all first names are even shorter, while 93% consist of more than four 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.

With 6.3% of all girls' names that begin with a T, this first letter is thus much more common than all 26 letters on average - and the most popular one of all the girls’ names starting with T is Teresa.

Other names with 
T, a, r and a

If you take all the letters in the name Tara – T, a, r and a – and put them together again, you can form another name, such as Arta.

With hands, flags and sounds 
How to say Tara

If your name is Tara 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 Tara

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

Tiger

Apple

Rocket

Apple

This is how the name Tara 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 Tara in Braille?

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

Tara

Tara

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

Just use American Sign Language!

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

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

T
A
R
A

Have you ever waved the name Tara

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.

T
A
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. Tara sounds like this: