Fun Facts About the Name Asmara
- 193 babies named Asmara: U.S. records list 193 babies given the name Asmara from 1880 through 2025.
What Does the Name Asmara Mean?
Asmara is a given name with two unrelated origins. In Indonesia and the Malay-speaking world it means "love." It goes back to Sanskrit smara, a word for love, longing, and remembrance that also names Kama, the Hindu god of desire. Javanese and Indonesian added an opening vowel to produce asmara, the ordinary word for romantic love, which is also used as a personal name.
Separately, Asmara is the Tigrinya name of the capital of Eritrea and is used as a personal name in Eritrea and Ethiopia. It is traditionally explained as "they made them unite," from a Tigrinya root connected with joining or uniting, and it is tied to a local account of four villages that came together at the city's site. Because the exact root and the details of that account are not firmly documented, the Tigrinya derivation is best treated as traditional rather than settled.
Asmara Name History & Origins
The Indonesian name passed into the language through Old Javanese, which borrowed heavily from Sanskrit. In Sanskrit, smara means both "recollection" and "love," and personifies Kama, the god of desire. In Javanese, asmara became the usual term for love and passion and appears in classical Javanese writing, including the name of the traditional verse form Asmaradana. From Javanese the word entered Indonesian, where it remains common both as a vocabulary word and as an element in personal names, often for girls.
In the Horn of Africa, Asmara is the Tigrinya name of Eritrea's capital. The city grew out of a group of highland settlements, and local tradition traces the name to a story of four villages that united at the site, reflected in the Tigrinya phrase Arbate Asmara. The name belonged to the place well before the colonial era, when Asmara became the capital of the Italian colony of Eritrea and was rebuilt as a modern city. As a personal name, Asmara is used mainly by Tigrinya- and Amharic-speaking families in Eritrea and Ethiopia and in their communities abroad, usually for girls.
How Popular is the Name Asmara?
Asmara has historically been an exceptionally rare given name in the United States, remaining well outside the national mainstream. It saw its highest recorded annual births in 2025. Its best rank was #4,999 in 2025.
U.S. name popularity from 1880-2025, based on SSA data. Rank shows how the name compares with other names - lower numbers mean greater popularity. Births shows how many babies received the name each year.
| Year | Rank | Births | % |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | #4,999 | 26 | 0.0016% |
| 2024 | #8,477 | 12 | 0.0007% |
| 2023 | #8,528 | 12 | 0.0007% |
| 2021 | #15,546 | 5 | 0.0003% |
| 2020 | #7,264 | 15 | 0.0009% |
| 2019 | #7,059 | 16 | 0.0010% |
| 2018 | #7,139 | 16 | 0.0009% |
| 2017 | #11,768 | 8 | 0.0005% |
| 2016 | #16,550 | 5 | 0.0003% |
| 2014 | #12,085 | 8 | 0.0004% |
| 2013 | #8,634 | 13 | 0.0007% |
| 2012 | #12,351 | 8 | 0.0005% |
| 2011 | #12,312 | 8 | 0.0005% |
| 2009 | #17,637 | 5 | 0.0003% |
| 2008 | #14,021 | 7 | 0.0004% |
| 2007 | #15,733 | 6 | 0.0003% |
| 2000 | #11,938 | 7 | 0.0004% |
| 1999 | #14,641 | 5 | 0.0003% |
| 1995 | #11,941 | 6 | 0.0003% |
| 1993 | #13,654 | 5 | 0.0003% |
Name popularity over more than a century, based on Social Security Administration data. Gaps in the chart indicate years when the name does not appear in the published records.
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How the Name Asmara Shapes Your Personality and Life?
Powerful and complete. You are good intellectually and require several outlets for your energies. You are not a builder but a planner, and you want others to carry out your plans. You are bold, independent, inquisitive and interested in research. You know what you want and why you want it.
Position and social status is very important for you and you are always looking for way to improve your position in society. You have power and ability to chose your own destiny and achieve anything you want in life. You can expand in any direction according to your will and the set of values. You have passion for justice and belong to the position of authority. You have an inherent courage and endurance to accomplish "The Impossible Dream". With the power comes responsibility. You hold keys to the material world, but with this gift comes high spiritual responsibility to be fair and true to others. You are philosophical and mature, determined and intense with a desire to endure, often religious.
✦ Asmara's Deeper Meaning & Tips for Parents Discover Asmara's symbolic numbers and practical tips for choosing a name that complements your child's birth date.