Skip to content
NameLore.

Name

Zora

/ZOR-ah/ FeminineSlavic

Meaning

Zora is a feminine name of Slavic origin meaning “dawn”.

Zora means dawn in several Slavic languages, where folk songs greet zora as the personified morning light. American parents most often choose it to honor writer and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston, giving the name a double inheritance of daybreak and literary genius.

Returned to the US girls' top 1000 in the 2010s.

Popularity in the United States

Girls

Ranked #968 in 2025 · peak #786 in 2019

Data: US Social Security Administration, top-1000 ranks.

At a glance

Origin
Slavic
Gender
Feminine
Pronounced
/ZOR-ah/
Themes
LightRebirth

Advertisement

Questions

  • Zora is a feminine name of Slavic origin meaning “dawn”. Zora means dawn in several Slavic languages, where folk songs greet zora as the personified morning light.

  • Zora is traditionally a feminine (girl) name. Returned to the US girls' top 1000 in the 2010s.

  • The name Zora comes from Slavic. Zora means dawn in several Slavic languages, where folk songs greet zora as the personified morning light. American parents most often choose it to honor writer and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston, giving the name a double inheritance of daybreak and literary genius.

  • Zora is pronounced ZOR-ah.

More names that mean light

Names that share this meaning.

  1. Áine FeminineIrish“radiance, brilliance”
  2. Akari FeminineJapanese“light, brightness”
  3. Alya FeminineArabic“sky, heaven, loftiness”
  4. Anwar MasculineArabic“brighter, more luminous”
  5. Apollo MasculineGreek“uncertain; god of the sun and light”
  6. Arun MasculineSanskrit“reddish glow of the rising sun”