Cora
The girl's name Cora has been in the national records since 1880, with 156,415 births to its name. In 2025 it ranked 113th. About 75,000 Coras are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 12.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Cora boys named Cora
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 156,415
- Estimated living today
- 75,000
- Median age today
- 12
- Peak year
- 2019
- Best rank
- 71st
- Rank in 2025
- 113th
- First recorded
- 1880
- Girls / boys
- 156,028 / 387
How old the living Coras are
born that year still alive today
Of the 156,415 babies given the name since 1880, about 75,000 are alive — 48 in every hundred. Roughly 47,000 of them are children and 13,000 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 2013 and half after.
An estimate, not a count. SSA births aged forward through SSA cohort life tables, which know nothing about who left the country or arrived in it — so for a name that mostly came to America rather than being born in it, this is a floor rather than a figure. Where you fall among living Americans.
Where the name comes from
Origin Ancient Greek
Apparently brought up in English literature by James Fenimore Cooper in The Last of the Mohicans (1826), but compare a female heroine of this name in Jean-François Marmontel's Les Incas (1777) and the Ancient Greek epithet Κόρη for Περσεφόνη. It could also refer directly to κόρη (“maiden”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Coras
- Cora Sandel (1880–1974)Norwegian writer and painter
- Cora Sue Collins (1927–2025)American child actress
- Cora Witherspoon (1890–1957)actress
- Cora Jade (born 2001)American professional wrestler
- Cora Diamond (born 1937)American philosopher
- Cora pika (1889–1985)Brazilian poet and short story writer
- Cora van Nieuwenhuizen (born 1963)Dutch former politician
- Cora Pearl (1837–1886)English courtesan who became famous in the Second French Empire
People named Cora with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Cora is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Cora is most concentrated in Mississippi (2.3×), Alabama (2.0×), Arkansas (1.9×), North Carolina (1.9×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 2019
The most popular girls’ names the year Cora peaked:
Cora elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| England and Wales girls | Cora | 4,845 | 134th |
| Ireland girls | Cora +1 spelling | 1,934 | 77th |
| Northern Ireland girls | Cora | 1,017 | 33rd |
| Scotland girls | Cora | 857 | 61st |
| France girls | Cora | 600 | 1,583rd |
| Italy girls | Cora | 452 | — |
| Switzerland girls | Cora | 161 | 478th |
| New Zealand girls | Cora | 99 | 76th |
| Ireland boys | Cora | 35 | 122nd |
| Poland girls | Cora | 2 birth registrations | 706th |
Counts come from each country's own records and are not comparable with the US figures above, which cover different years and a different definition of a recorded name. Where a country writes the name several ways, the spellings are added together and the most common is shown. A row marked name registrations is counting something else: Portugal ranks each of a child's two given names separately, so a girl registered Maria Leonor is in both the Maria row and the Leonor row, and that figure is not a number of children.
Cora: births by region
| Region | Country | Spelling | Births | Share of the region | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| German girls | Switzerland | Cora | 101 | 0.008% | 420th |
| French girls | Switzerland | Cora | 36 | 0.008% | 293rd |
| Italian girls | Switzerland | Cora | 22 | 0.034% | 87th |
| Romansh girls | Switzerland | Cora | 2 | 0.054% | 10th |
Parts of a country counted above, not extra births. The share is what makes the regions comparable: they differ in size by a factor of three hundred.
By canton, Cora is most concentrated in Zurich, where 0.01% of children were given it – 35 of them.
Cora: rank by region
In 2023, Cora was among the 10 most common names in 1 region of Italy.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Valle d'Aosta/Vallée d'Aoste | Cora | 8 | 1 |
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Italy after 10 names – and published nothing after. So a region missing here is one where the name fell outside what was published, not one where it went unused. Places are shared where names tie, and the further down a list a place is, the more names can share it.
Cora by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin girls | 2017–2023 | 10 | 398th |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Cora among the living
How many people each country's register counts under the name, rather than how many were given it in any one year. Each register was read on one date, and they are not the same date.
| Country | Spelling | First forename | Any forename |
|---|---|---|---|
| Finland girls | Cora | 23 | 30 |
A count of people on a register – Finland on 4 August 2026 – and not of births, so it cannot be compared with the figures above. Names with very few bearers are withheld, and a dash in the first-forename column means the register would not say rather than that nobody goes by it.
Where Cora lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 1,295 women called Cora were living in Spain on 1 January 2025, of every age, born in any year. Where they live is not spread evenly.
Women: the provinces where it is densest
| Province | Spelling | People | Per thousand | Place there |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Girona | Cora | 96 | 0.232 | 448 |
| Pontevedra | Cora | 75 | 0.153 | 532 |
| Lugo | Cora | 21 | 0.125 | 632 |
| Barcelona | Cora | 321 | 0.105 | 696 |
| Ourense | Cora | 16 | 0.101 | 689 |
| Tarragona | Cora | 37 | 0.085 | 948 |
Listed in 37 of Spain's 52 provinces. In the other 15 it is either held by fewer than 5 people – the point below which the source withholds a name – or it fell past the 5,000 names the source will print for one province. Neither means nobody there is called it. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.
Related names
Cora against another name
Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.
Try it on yourself
Source: US Social Security Administration, national and state baby-name files, 1880–2025. Counts include only births registered with the SSA, and names with fewer than five births in a year are not published. The living estimate applies SSA cohort life tables to those births; it counts people born in the United States, so it misses anyone who arrived later and anyone who has left.