Rahma

Meaning of Rahma

Rahma, pronounced RAH-mah (/ræhˈmɑː/), is a feminine personal name of Classical Arabic provenance that derives from the triliteral root r-ḥ-m, a lexical family that furnishes the Qurʾānic epithet al-Raḥmān (“the Most Merciful”) and, more broadly, articulates the intertwined notions of mercy, compassion, and maternal tenderness that stand at the ethical center of Islamic theology. In many Arabic-speaking and East African communities the name functions not only as an identifier but also as a concise moral aspiration, linking the bearer to a virtue esteemed in both religious and secular discourse. Within the United States, Social Security data reveal a pattern of quiet but durable usage: since the early 1990s the name has appeared each year, generally within the 800s or 900s of the national rankings and fluctuating between roughly 20 and 100 annual registrations, a statistical profile characteristic of culturally specific yet increasingly transnational names. For Anglophone parents seeking a succinct, phonetically transparent, and meaning-laden choice that signals global awareness without abandoning linguistic simplicity, Rahma offers a poised balance of semantic depth and contemporary understatement.