Ima
given name · Latin script
Meaning: mother; Algiers
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ɪmə/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Ima is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Nigeria than in any other country.
- NGNigeria≈1 in 16K(inferred from the name graph)
- USUnited States1 in 176K
- MYMalaysia≈1 in 46K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- Nigeria (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 215 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 16K (inferred from the name graph)
≈13,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Nigeria, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
mother; Algiers
Sources 1
- Dicionario Sefaradi De SobrenomesDictionary Of Sephardic Surnames Inclusive Cristaos-Novos, Conversos, Marranos, Italianos,…
Attested across 19 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Ima counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NG Nigeria | ≈13,000 est. | ≈1 in 16K | — | Ima | 36 |
| US United States | 1,889 | 1 in 176K | 1.8K | Ima | 215 |
| MY Malaysia | ≈720 est. | ≈1 in 46K | — | Ima | 23 |
| EG Egypt | ≈570 est. | ≈1 in 183K | — | Ima | 15 |
| GB United Kingdom | ≈340 est. | ≈1 in 191K | listed | Ima | 64 |
| CA Canada | ≈280 est. | ≈1 in 136K | — | Ima | 29 |
| TN Tunisia | ≈170 est. | ≈1 in 68K | — | Ima | 5 |
| SG Singapore | ≈99 est. | ≈1 in 63K | — | Ima | 11 |
Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex. Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Other recorded senses(measured from records)
Ima is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In English, Japanese; now, the present
as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
Regalo
as a name25,000 nombres de bebé. La mejor guía para escoger el nombre adecuado
In Hungarian, prayer
as a wordEtymological Dictionary of Hungarian
In Hungarian, to commemorate; commemoration, conclave
as a wordEtymological Dictionary of Hungarian
In Hungarian, commemorated
as a wordEtymological Dictionary of Hungarian
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Ima Shalomb. 1001st century CE wife of Eliezer ben Hurcanus, a Mishnaic sage, and sister of Rabban Gamaliel II
- Ima van Eysingab. 1881NLDutch painter (1881-1958)
- Ima Hoggb. 1882USAmerican philanthropist and arts patron (1882–1975)
- Ima Breusingb. 1886DEGerman painter (1886–1968)
- Ima Honaker Herronb. 1899literary scholar (1899-1997)
- Ima Galguénb. 1960ESSpanish singer
- Ima Garrastatxu Urbanejab. 1963ESmayor of Durango (Bizcay)
- Ima Bohushb. 1990BYBelarusian tennis player
- Mercy Ima Macjoeb. 1993NGNigerian actress
- Ima JacksonGBcommunity engaged researcher
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
How to address them(machine-generated)
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 50 sources across 31 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, voter-file supplement (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 3
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What are other forms of the name Ima?
- In the etymology graph, Emma, Irma and Ema are forms of the same name in other languages.
- How do you pronounce Ima?
- A machine transcription gives /ɪmə/ (IPA) for English.
- What does the name Ima mean, and where does it come from?
- mother; Algiers Recorded by Dicionario Sefaradi De SobrenomesDictionary Of Sephardic Surnames Inclusive Cristaos-Novos, Conversos, Marranos, Italianos,….
- Is Ima a male or female name?
- Ima is a female name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
- In which country does Ima have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 13 thousand people named Ima in Nigeria, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled ima.
- How common is the name Ima?
- In the United States, the national register counted 1,889 people named Ima in 2020, about 1 in 176 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Ima?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/imaThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Ima”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.