The name Nasiriyah was a one-hit wonder in the U.S. baby name data in 2003:
- 2005: unlisted
- 2004: unlisted
- 2003: 15 baby girls named Nasiriyah [debut]
- 2002: unlisted
- 2001: unlisted
Where did “Nasiriyah” come from, and what happened in 2003 to draw people’s attention to it?
It came from the city of Nasiriyah in southern Iraq. The city was founded and named after a local sheikh name Nasir in the 1870s. (The Arabic name Nasir means “helper.”)
The event that introduced Nasiriyah to the American public was the Iraq War (which overthrew the government of Saddam Hussein and, thereby, had an influence on Iraqi baby names). The Battle of Nasiriyah, one of the first major battles of the war, was fought between U.S. Marines and Iraqi forces and lasted from March 23 to April 2.
(One of the female soldiers involved in the battle, Jessica Lynch, had a baby girl in 2007 and gave her the middle name Ann in honor of Lori Ann Piestewa, the first woman in the U.S. military killed in the Iraq War.)
What do you think of Nasiriyah as a baby name? Do you like it more or less than the similar names Nayirah and Nasiya?
Sources: Nasiriyah – Wikipedia, U.S. Marines in Battle: An-Nasiriyah (PDF)
