Aurora
Feminine name of Latin origin meaning "dawn" or "the Roman goddess of the morning".
Roughly 82,046 people in the United States go by the first name Aurora, which ranks #16 nationally when sorted by estimated living bearers. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Aurora today is around 15 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Aurora births was 2024 (6,924 babies). In terms of living bearers, it sits close to Hope (81,796).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Aurora. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
For a British comparison, Name Census UK has a UK baby-name profile for Aurora with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Although Aurora is used almost entirely for girls, the SSA data does show 91 boys registered with the name since 1880.
- • Aurora is a relatively new arrival in the SSA data. The average bearer is just 15 years old, meaning it gained most of its traction in the last two decades.
People living today
82K
~ 1 in 4,178 Americans
Peak year
2024
6,924 babies that year
Average age
15
years old
2024 SSA rank
#16
Tracked since 1880
Census
Aurora in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 66,929 people with the first name Aurora, which placed it at #753 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#753
National first-name rank
People counted
67K
66,929 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
22.2
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
Hispanic or Latino
46.6% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Aurora
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Aurora is Hispanic at 46.6%. The next largest groups are White (39.4%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (5.9%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Aurora described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Aurora at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- Hispanic or Latino46.6% · 31,188
- White39.4% · 26,360
- Asian and Pacific Islander5.9% · 3,935
- Two or more races5.3% · 3,537
- Black or African American2.0% · 1,313
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.9% · 596
Gender
Gender distribution for Aurora
Out of the 92,071 babies given the name Aurora since 1880, 99.9% were registered as female. The name sits firmly on the female side of the spectrum, with only a handful of male registrations across the entire dataset.
Aurora as a male name
- Ranked #9,980 in 2024
- 7 male births in 2024
- Peak: 1927 (9 births)
Aurora as a female name
- Ranked #16 in 2024
- 6,917 female births in 2024
- Peak: 2024 (6,917 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Aurora appears almost entirely female. Of the 66,923 people counted with this name, 99.8% were female and only a very small share were male.
Popularity
Aurora: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Aurora from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 15 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2010s, with 32,157 total registrations. The name continues to be given at rates close to its all-time high, suggesting it has not yet fallen out of fashion.
Babies born per year
Decades
Aurora by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Aurora during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Auroras live
The SSA's state-level files cover 51 states and territories. Texas, California, New York recorded the most babies named Aurora, while District of Columbia, Vermont, Delaware recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 1,723 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Aurora
The name Aurora is derived from the Latin word "aurora," which means "dawn" or "sunrise." This name has its roots in Roman mythology, where Aurora was the goddess of dawn, often depicted as a beautiful woman who opened the gates of the morning and scattered the morning dew.
In ancient Roman literature, Aurora was mentioned in various works, including Virgil's Aeneid and Ovid's Metamorphoses. The name was also used in ancient Roman times, though it was not as common as some other names.
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Aurora is from the 4th century AD, when it was borne by a Christian martyr named Aurora of Hispania. Later, in the 6th century, there was a Saint Aurora who was a nun and abbess in France.
During the Renaissance period, the name Aurora gained popularity, particularly in Italy, where it was associated with the revival of classical culture and the rediscovery of ancient Roman myths and legends. One notable figure from this time was Aurora Rambouillet (1539-1608), an Italian-born French noblewoman who hosted a famous literary salon in Paris.
In the 17th century, the name Aurora was also used in England, as seen with the English writer Aurora Leigh (1819-1851), whose real name was Elizabeth Barrett Browning. She was a renowned poet and one of the most prominent writers of her time.
Another notable bearer of the name was Aurora Karamzin (1808-1902), a Russian writer and translator who played a significant role in introducing Russian literature to Western audiences.
In the 19th century, the name Aurora became more widespread in various parts of Europe and the Americas. One famous example is Aurora Lucero Hogan (1847-1922), known as the "Goddess of Liberty," who was a Mexican-American woman who posed for the Statue of Liberty in New York.
The name Aurora has also been associated with several notable figures in the arts and sciences, such as the Italian painter Aurora Prosperi (1490-1520), the Mexican painter Aurora Reyes (1908-1985), and the American astronomer Aurora Tsinan Ferendinos (1912-1989).
People
Aurora + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Aurora as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with A
Other first names starting with A with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Aurora: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Aurora?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 82,046 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Aurora going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 4,178 US residents.
Is Aurora a common name?
We classify Aurora as "Uncommon". It ranks above 99.4% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 92,071 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Aurora most popular?
The single biggest year for Aurora was 2024, when 6,924 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Aurora is about 15 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Aurora in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 66,929 people with the name Aurora, or 22.16 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #753 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Aurora in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Aurora?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Aurora appears almost entirely female. Of the 66,923 people counted with this name, 99.8% were female and only a very small share were male. The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Aurora?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Aurora is Hispanic at 46.6%. The next largest groups are White (39.4%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (5.9%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Aurora most often in the Census?
Hispanic is the largest reported group for people named Aurora in the 2020 Census, accounting for 46.6% (31,188 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Aurora in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Aurora a female name?
Yes, 99.9% of people registered as Aurora in the SSA data are female. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Is Aurora still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Aurora in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Aurora can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.
How common is the name Aurora?
For a faster, more casual read, check HowManyOfMe.org — our sister site built around that single question.