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Irja

Girls' name

Diminutive of Irina

Irja has been given to 156 babies in the U.S. since 1910. It was used fewer than 5 times in 2025, so it doesn't appear in the latest year's list — today it's a genuinely uncommon pick. Its peak year was 1918, with 20 recorded.

Babies named Irja, 1930

1 in 445,000

Irja over time, 1880–2025

Girls
0510152018801900192019401960198020002020

Based on births in the U.S. Babies given the name each year. Hover the chart — or focus it and use the arrow keys — for any year. Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Irja: meaning, origin, and history

Diminutive of Irina

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Irja means

Irja is a diminutive of Irina.

Documented naming usage and pronunciation

Irja is used in Finnish.

Another recorded pronunciation is /ˈir.jɑ/ for Irja.

Meaning behind the documented name family

The name developed through Irja → Irina → Ири́на. The family’s meaning is “peace”, recorded in Russian with the source elements eirḗnē.

Origin, language, and formation

Irja is used in Estonian and Finnish.

Related names and everyday forms

Related names include Irina and George.

Pronunciation and spelling

In Finnish, Irja is pronounced /ˈirjɑ/.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 156 girls were recorded with the name Irja between 1910 and 1930. Its highest annual count was 20 in 1918; its best national rank was #1,915 in 1915.

Sources & methodologyReferences, data & attribution

Meaning, origin, and language notes draw on the references below.

American popularity figures use published Social Security Administration records for this exact spelling. Counts below five for a name, sex, and year are omitted.

Wiktionary material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

How common is Irja?

Irja had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 1930, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 1930
1 in 445,000
5 of 2,223,243 births
Among girls only
1 in 225,000
<0.01% of girls
Rank, 1930
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
308,208 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Irja sits on the popularity scale

Rarest published (5 a year)#1 — Olivia (13,544)

Chance at least one other child shares the name

If the other children were drawn at random from the 1930 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.

Class of 20Under 1%
Class of 30Under 1%
Grade of 100Under 1%
School of 500Under 1%

Put another way: gather 308,208 children born in 1930 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Irja. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Irjas were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Irja was born before 1917 — so the typical Irja is around 108 today.

Median birth year
1917
About 108 years old
Biggest decade
1910s
76.3% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
100.0%
A modern name
Recorded since 1950
0
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1910s — 76.3% of all recorded uses (119).

Is Irja rising or falling?

Rank movement and count movement can disagree — the number of distinct names in use keeps growing, so a name holding a steady count still slides down the list. Both are shown.

Rank vs 1 year ago
—
Not ranked then
Rank vs 5 years ago
New entry
Not ranked then
Rank vs 10 years ago
—
Not ranked then
Births vs 10 years ago
—
Not published both years
Share of its own peak
0%
Peak was 1918 (20)
Years since peak
107
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
29.2% average annual change
Best rank ever
#1,915
1915

Spellings of Irja

Irja is not the most common spelling — Ida is, with 19.0% against Irja's 0.02%.

Grouped by closeness of spelling (up to two letter changes), same sex, with a floor on all-time use. It catches Sophia/Sofia and Aiden/Ayden, and misses spellings that sound alike but look different, like Sean and Shawn.

Where Irja is used

Across 1910–2025, Irja was most concentrated in Michigan — about 1 in — girls, against 1 in 645,712 across all states with data. It was least common in Minnesota (1 in —).

00 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1Michigan1 in —
  2. 2Minnesota1 in —

Shading is the share of that state's recorded girls given this name, not the raw count — otherwise the map would just show which states are biggest. Unshaded states have no published records for this period. U.S. birth records suppress state-year counts below 5; state counts therefore don't add up to the national total. Every state links to its full rankings. Irja has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Irja by the numbers

The raw record for each sex the name is used for.

As a girl's name

Rank in 2025
Unranked
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
—
Best rank ever
#1,915
1915
Peak year
1918
20 that year
First recorded
1910
Last recorded
1930
All-time count
156
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Irja

Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.

UrjaMarjaJorjaNirjaTarja

Sibling names for Irja

Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.

Explore around Irja

Top names of 1918, Irja's peak yearThe 1910s in fullOther names that peaked in 1915Girls' names starting with IFinnish Girl Names