Nora
Meaning of Nora
Nora is generally explained as an Irish feminine name, an anglicized form of Nóra, a short form of Honora (Onóra), which comes from the Latin honor, meaning honor or honorable. It is also commonly used as a short form of Eleanora or Leonora.
In English the name is pronounced NOR-uh, the same in American and British usage. In Italian and Spanish it is pronounced NOH-rah.
Its best-known literary association is Nora Helmer, the central character in Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House (1879). Among modern namesakes are the filmmaker and writer Nora Ephron and the novelist Nora Roberts.
In the United States, Nora ranked 20th in 2025, with 6,380 babies given the name. That is its highest rank to date. It had fallen to 500th in 2000, then rose sharply, reaching 49th in 2014 before entering the top 20.
Pronunciation
Italian
- Pronunced as NOH-rah (/'no.ra/)
Spanish
- Pronunced as NOH-rah (/'no.ɾa/)
English
- Pronunced as NOR-uh (/'nɔr.ə/)
U.S. Popularity Chart
States Popularity Chart
Notable People Named Nora
| Nora Ephron was an American journalist, writer, and filmmaker renowned for romantic comedies, earning a BAFTA and multiple Oscar, Golden Globe, Tony, and Writers Guild nominations. |
| Nora Roberts is a prolific American author of more than 225 novels, best known for romance, who also writes futuristic police procedurals as J. D. Robb and has published as Jill March and Sarah Hardesty. |
| Nora Fatehi is a Canadian dancer and actress based in India who has appeared in Hindi, Telugu, and Malayalam films, debuting in Roar Tigers of the Sundarbans. |
| Nora Connolly O'Brien was an Irish politician, activist, and writer who served in Seanad Eireann from 1957 to 1969. |
| Irish animator and filmmaker Nora Twomey, cofounder of Cartoon Saloon, co directed The Secret of Kells and directed The Breadwinner, both nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. |
| Nora Volkow - Nora D. Volkow is a Mexican American psychiatrist and director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse at the National Institutes of Health. |
| Nora Swinburne, born Leonora Mary Johnson, was an English actress known for many British film roles. |
| Nora Marks Dauenhauer - Nora Marks Keixwnei Dauenhauer was a Tlingit poet, short story writer, and Tlingit language scholar from Alaska who won an American Book Award for Russians in Tlingit America and served as Alaska State Writer Laureate from 2012 to 2014. |
| Nora Bayes was an American singer and vaudeville star of the early 20th century who cowrote Shine On Harvest Moon, performed wartime hits like Over There, and became an independent early media celebrity with over 160 recordings. |
| Nora Lee Guthrie, daughter of folk legend Woody Guthrie, leads the Woody Guthrie Foundation and Publications, founded the Woody Guthrie Archive, and is the sister of Arlo Guthrie and granddaughter of poet Aliza Greenblatt. |
| Nora Krug is a German American author and illustrator best known for her award winning graphic memoir Belonging and for teaching illustration at Parsons School of Design in New York. |
| Nora Jane Struthers is a Nashville-based American singer-songwriter whose genre-blending Americana and roots rock, highlighted by the Top 20 album Carnival, has earned acclaim from NPR and Rolling Stone. |
| Known for character roles, English actress Nora Nicholson achieved late-career success with eccentric portrayals in Shakespeare and Chekhov classics and new plays by Noel Coward and Alan Bennett. |
| Nora Wingfield Tyson is a retired US Navy vice admiral who made history as the first woman to command a carrier strike group and later a Navy fleet. |
