Lyra
A feminine name of Greek origin meaning "lyre" or "small harp".
Name Census estimates that about 7,193 living Americans carry the first name Lyra. It sits at #482 in the overall ranking, outside the top 50 but still well-represented. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Lyra today is around 11 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Lyra births was 2021 (643 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Lyra. 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 Lyra with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Lyra is a relatively new arrival in the SSA data. The average bearer is just 11 years old, meaning it gained most of its traction in the last two decades.
People living today
7.2K
~ 1 in 47,651 Americans
Peak year
2021
643 babies that year
Average age
11
years old
2024 SSA rank
#482
Tracked since 1893
Census
Lyra in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 4,274 people with the first name Lyra, which placed it at #4,395 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
#4,395
National first-name rank
People counted
4.3K
4,274 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
1.4
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
65.8% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Lyra
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Lyra is White at 65.8%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (12.1%) and Two or More Races (10.0%). 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 Lyra 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 Lyra at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White65.8% · 2,814
- Hispanic or Latino12.1% · 517
- Two or more races10.0% · 426
- Asian and Pacific Islander7.4% · 316
- Black or African American4.0% · 171
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.7% · 30
Popularity
Lyra: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Lyra from the 1890s through to the 2020s, spanning 13 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2020s, with 3,099 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
Lyra 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 Lyra during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Lyras live
The SSA's state-level files cover 47 states and territories. California, Texas, New York recorded the most babies named Lyra, while South Dakota, Montana, Wyoming recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 124 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Lyra
The name Lyra has its origins in ancient Greek mythology and language. It is derived from the Greek word 'lura' which means a lyre, a stringed musical instrument resembling a small harp. The lyre was closely associated with the Greek goddess of music, poetry, and eloquence, who was called Terpsichore.
Lyra is also the name of a small constellation in the northern celestial hemisphere, representing the lyre of Orpheus, the legendary musician, poet, and prophet in ancient Greek religion and myths. The constellation is one of the oldest recognized in human history, with its earliest known depiction dating back to ancient Greek sources from the 7th century BC.
One of the earliest recorded examples of the name Lyra is from Greek mythology itself, where Lyra was the name of the daughter of the god Apollo and the nymph Terpsichore. In some versions of the myth, Lyra was transformed into the constellation after her death.
Throughout history, there have been several notable individuals with the first name Lyra. One of the earliest was Lyra Vibia Perpetua, a young Christian noblewoman who lived in the early 3rd century AD in the Roman province of Africa. She was executed for her faith in 203 AD and is now venerated as a martyr and saint in the Roman Catholic Church.
Another notable Lyra was Lyra Bútterfield, an English mathematician and philosopher who lived from 1790 to 1860. She is best known for her work on the foundations of mathematics and her contributions to the development of symbolic logic.
In the field of astronomy, Lyra Nikolaievna Tseraskaya was a Soviet astronomer who lived from 1892 to 1976. She made significant contributions to the study of variable stars and the structure of the Milky Way galaxy.
Lyra Belacqua is a fictional character and the protagonist of the His Dark Materials trilogy of fantasy novels by Philip Pullman, published between 1995 and 2000. She is a young girl who embarks on a journey to uncover secrets about a mysterious substance called "Dust" and the nature of consciousness.
More recently, Lyra McKee was a Northern Irish journalist and author who lived from 1990 to 2019. She was tragically killed while observing a riot in Derry, Northern Ireland, and her death sparked widespread condemnation of the ongoing violence in the region.
People
Lyra + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Lyra as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with L
Other first names starting with L with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Lyra: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Lyra?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 7,193 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Lyra 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 47,651 US residents.
Is Lyra a common name?
We classify Lyra as "Rare". It ranks above 97.2% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 7,378 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Lyra most popular?
The single biggest year for Lyra was 2021, when 643 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Lyra is about 11 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Lyra in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 4,274 people with the name Lyra, or 1.42 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #4,395 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 Lyra 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 Lyra?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Lyra appears almost entirely female. Of the 4,270 people counted with this name, 99.7% 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 Lyra?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Lyra is White at 65.8%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (12.1%) and Two or More Races (10.0%). 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 Lyra most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Lyra in the 2020 Census, accounting for 65.8% (2,814 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 Lyra in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Lyra a female name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Lyra 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 Lyra still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Lyra 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 Lyra 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 many people are called Lyra?
HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site, answers that with the living-bearer count in one glance.