Ira
One of the rarest names here: barely 150 people in Poland carry it, and most Poles have never met one. From Hebrew, it holds a sense of watchfulness, a guardian keeping watch.
Ira Pronunciation
Ira is pronounced EE-rah (/ˈira/).
What Ira means
Where Ira comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Ira begins in Hebrew, and its old sense is watchful, someone posted to keep an eye on the road. The Hebrew Bible hands the name to a real man. In the second book of Samuel, Ira the Jairite serves as a priest and adviser to King David. A keeper. A man kept close to the king because he paid attention.
In a Polish class register the spelling stays short and firm, four letters among longer names, and it does not blur into anything else. The fuller variant is Irena, and from Irena come the softer diminutives Irenka and Irka.
So the name works on two settings. It can read as the watchful guard of its Hebrew root, or as the small warm form a family uses for a girl called Irenka. The meaning that travels furthest is the plain one: watchful, a strażnik who stays awake while others sleep.
How many people are named Ira
1 in 152323 women in Poland is named Ira. 155 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #2595 among female names.
Ira's popularity over time
Fewer than 2 girls were given the name in 2025. It has been climbing since 2025.
Ira as a middle name
Ira is a first name for 155 women in Poland and a middle name for another 21, an 88/12 split. In the men's middle-name ranking it sits 1924th, between Hisham (21) and Jamil (21).
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#1922 Hervé21
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#1923 Hisham21
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#1924 Ira21
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#1925 Jamil21
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#1926 Jean-Paul21