Meaning of the nameMaíra

Female
Tupi origin
Ma-í-ra

Maíra is a female name of Tupi origin, from Old Tupi Maíra, which Wiktionary glosses as the name of a mythical prophet.

Meaning

“name of a mythical prophet”

People (2022): 52,120
Rank in Brazil: #547
Median age: 27 years
2010 Census: 56,220; people

Maíra in the 2022 Census

People with the first name Maíra, by the decade they were born. In the chart, 70 = the 1970s and 20+ = 2020 to 2022. The largest group was born in the 1990s (17,546 people).

51,853 women 267 men

Source: IBGE, 2022 Demographic Census, Nomes no Brasil. The census counts the first name of people alive in 2022; small counts are not published, and the first group covers everyone born before 1940. How to read these data.

Where the name Maíra is most common

States with the highest share of people named Maíra in the population, in the 2022 Census.

Rio Grande do Sul 0.035%
Bahia 0.034%
Amapá 0.033%
Santa Catarina 0.033%
Distrito Federal 0.031%

All states

State	People	% of population
São Paulo	12,409	0.028%
Minas Gerais	5,822	0.028%
Bahia	4,773	0.034%
Rio Grande do Sul	3,817	0.035%
Rio de Janeiro	3,215	0.020%
Santa Catarina	2,473	0.033%
Paraná	2,419	0.021%
Pará	2,219	0.027%
Pernambuco	1,850	0.020%
Ceará	1,545	0.018%
Maranhão	1,541	0.023%
Goiás	1,208	0.017%
Amazonas	923	0.023%
Distrito Federal	871	0.031%
Mato Grosso	857	0.023%
Piauí	793	0.024%
Espírito Santo	791	0.021%
Mato Grosso do Sul	786	0.029%
Rio Grande do Norte	694	0.021%
Alagoas	694	0.022%
Paraíba	635	0.016%
Sergipe	517	0.023%
Rondônia	344	0.022%
Tocantins	335	0.022%
Amapá	241	0.033%
Roraima	176	0.028%
Acre	172	0.021%

States with fewer than 15 people with the name are not shown: IBGE does not publish those counts.

About the name Maíra

Wiktionary records Maíra as a female name of Brazilian use, a borrowing from Old Tupi Maíra, the name of a mythical prophet; the Old Tupi entry cites records by Thevet (1557–1558, 'Mahire') and Anchieta (1584) and Navarro's Old Tupi dictionary (2013). Behind the Name has a separate entry for Maira, the name of characters in Greek mythology, from Greek marmairo, 'to sparkle, to shine'. The Dicionário de Nomes em Uso no Brasil lists Mayra, Mahira and Myara among the spelling variants of Maira. In the 2022 Census, IBGE recorded 52,120 people named Maíra, with a peak among those born in the 1990s. Proportionally, the name is most common in Rio Grande do Sul.

It takes an acute accent on the í, which breaks up the diphthong and marks the stressed syllable.

Other spellings of Maíra

Spelling	People (2022)
Maíra	52,120
Mayra	33,115

Sources

Wiktionary: Maíra · en.wiktionary.org · meaning
Wiktionary: Maíra (Old Tupi) · en.wiktionary.org · origin
Behind the Name: Maira · behindthename.com · origin
Dicionário de Nomes em Uso no Brasil: Maira · dicionariodenomesdobrasil.com.br · spelling

Questions about the name Maíra

What does the name Maíra mean?

Maíra means “name of a mythical prophet”, according to Wiktionary.

How many people are named Maíra in Brazil?

IBGE's 2022 Census recorded 52,120 people with the first name Maíra, which ranks it number 547 among the country's names. The largest group was born in the 1990s.

Is Maíra a boy's or a girl's name?

Maíra is a female name: in the 2022 Census, 51,853 women and 267 men had this name.

What is the origin of the name Maíra?

Maíra is a name of Tupi origin. The sources are listed at the end of the page.

In which Brazilian state is Maíra most common?

Proportionally, in Rio Grande do Sul: 0.035% of the state's population is named Maíra (3,817 people), according to the 2022 Census.

What are the other spellings of Maíra?

Mayra. IBGE counts each spelling separately.

More names of Tupi origin

See all

Spotted a mistake? Report a correction for Maíra with a source. See the methodology.