Zora is a Slavic name meaning "dawn" or "daybreak", long used in Serbia, Croatia, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. In the United States it is above all the name of Zora Neale Hurston, the Harlem Renaissance author of Their Eyes Were Watching God, which gives it literary weight and a strong following in African American families. Zora climbed from number 3981 in 2000 into the US top 1000 in 2018, peaked at number 788 in 2019 and ranks number 969 in 2025.