Azora

Meaning of Azora

Azora is a modern Anglo-American adoption of a Spanish lexical color term that ultimately descends from Arabic lazaward—the same root that yields English “azure”—and thus semantically evokes the saturated blues of an unclouded sky. Phonetically rendered as ə-ZOR-ə in English and a-SOH-ra in Spanish, its three open syllables and final feminine -a place it in the company of fluid, vowel-rich names such as Aurora and Zamora, yet its overall incidence remains low enough to feel distinctive. The earliest verifiable appearances of Azora in the United States occur in mid-nineteenth-century parish registers and in William B. Bradbury’s 1856 cantata “Azora, the Daughter of Montezuma,” but the name did not achieve measurable statistical presence until the 2010s; since then it has climbed from only seven recorded births in 2006 to eighty-five in 2024, securing rank 865 on the Social Security chart. Because blue is widely associated in color psychology with calm, depth, and intellectual clarity, the name carries a quiet symbolic resonance that appeals to parents seeking a rare yet pronounceable choice with understated thematic meaning. These linguistic, historical, and semiotic layers collectively position Azora as a concise, melodious option that integrates Iberian etymology with contemporary Anglo-American naming trends.