Nora

Meaning of Nora

Rooted in the Latin honorific stem “honor,” yet equally linked to the medieval contraction of Eleanor and to the Irish-Gaelic form Nóra, the name Nora embodies a convergence of linguistic streams that have flowed across Europe and North America for centuries. In contemporary English it is voiced NOR-uh, while Romance-language speakers render it more open—NOH-rah—differences that underline its portability rather than fracture its identity. Literary history endows the name with layered associations: Henrik Ibsen’s Nora Helmer, whose quiet rebellion in A Doll’s House became a touchstone for modern individualism; James Joyce’s lifelong companion, Nora Barnacle, through whom the author anchored Irish modernism in lived experience; and, by extension, the Arabic cognate Nūr, “light,” which confers an abstract radiance often cited by name scholars. Demographically, Nora has traced a distinctive U-shaped trajectory in the United States: after occupying the lower mid-range of the Social Security lists for much of the twentieth century, it began a steady ascent at the turn of the millennium, rising from rank 452 in 2000 to rank 22 in 2024, a pattern interpreted by sociolinguists as evidence of renewed favor for concise, vintage given names. Because it straddles multiple etymologies while remaining phonetically simple, Nora offers expecting parents a synthesis of historical gravitas, intercultural adaptability, and modern brevity, qualities that together explain its durable and now accelerating popularity.

Pronunciation

Italian

• Pronunced as NOH-rah (/'no.ra/)

Spanish

• Pronunced as NOH-rah (/'no.ɾa/)

English

• Pronunced as NOR-uh (/'nɔr.ə/)

• Norah
• Leonora
• Eleanor
• Cora
• Lenora
• Annora
• Honora