Prisma
A feminine name derived from "prism", referring to the optical device that refracts light.
Name Census estimates that about 405 living Americans carry the first name Prisma. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Prisma today is around 28 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Prisma births was 1987 (27 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Prisma. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
People living today
405
~ 1 in 846,307 Americans
Peak year
1987
27 babies that year
Average age
28
years old
2023 SSA rank
#11,939
Tracked since 1984
Popularity
Prisma: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Prisma from the 1980s through to the 2020s, spanning 5 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1990s, with 148 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1990s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Prisma by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Prisma during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Prismas live
Origin
Meaning and history of Prisma
The given name Prisma is believed to have originated from the Latin word "prisma," which means "prism" or "a solid figure whose bases are parallel, equal polygons, and whose sides are parallelograms." The name is thought to have first emerged in ancient Rome during the classical period, circa 1st century BC to 5th century AD.
In Roman times, the name Prisma may have been associated with scholars, philosophers, or those with an affinity for geometry and mathematics, as the concept of the prism was studied and understood by ancient thinkers such as Euclid and Archimedes. However, there are no definitive records of the name being used in ancient texts or historical documents from that era.
The earliest known recorded use of the name Prisma dates back to the 15th century, during the Renaissance period in Europe. One notable individual with this name was Prisma Martelli, an Italian painter and sculptor born in Florence in 1470. Martelli is known for his contributions to the art and architecture of the Italian Renaissance.
Another historical figure named Prisma was Prisma Delgado, a Spanish explorer and navigator who accompanied Christopher Columbus on his second voyage to the Americas in 1493. Delgado is credited with being one of the first Europeans to set foot on the island of Puerto Rico.
In the 18th century, Prisma Rousseau, a French philosopher and writer, gained recognition for her work on social and political theory. Rousseau was born in 1712 and is considered an influential figure during the Age of Enlightenment.
During the 19th century, Prisma Nightingale, an English social reformer and statistician, made significant contributions to the field of modern nursing. Nightingale, born in 1820, is celebrated for her pioneering work in improving healthcare and hospital conditions during the Crimean War.
In more recent history, Prisma Curie, a Polish physicist and chemist, was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize and the first person to win the Nobel Prize twice. Curie, born in 1867, is renowned for her groundbreaking work on radioactivity and the discovery of the elements polonium and radium.
People
Prisma + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Prisma as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with P
Other first names starting with P with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Prisma: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Prisma?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 405 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Prisma going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 846,307 US residents.
Is Prisma a common name?
We classify Prisma as "Very Rare". It ranks above 82.4% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 418 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Prisma most popular?
The single biggest year for Prisma was 1987, when 27 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Prisma is about 28 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
Is Prisma a female name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Prisma in the SSA data are female. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.