English word name meaning to regard with wonder, admiration, or deep respect.
Admire is a virtue name drawn from the Latin "admirari" — to wonder at, to look upon with astonishment and esteem — itself built from "ad" (toward) and "mirari" (to wonder), the same root that gives us "miracle" and "marvel." As a given name it belongs primarily to Zimbabwe and other parts of southern Africa, where the practice of naming children with English-language virtues and aspirations became widespread during the colonial period and was subsequently embraced and transformed into a distinctly local expressive tradition. In Zimbabwean naming culture, Admire is typically a masculine name and carries genuine intentionality: parents who name a son Admire are not merely labeling but declaring — that this child will be worthy of admiration, that his life will inspire wonder in others.
It sits alongside names like Takudzwa ("we are grateful"), Farai ("rejoice"), and Tawanda ("we have increased"), forming a naming tradition that treats children as statements of communal hope. The Shona and Ndebele traditions of Zimbabwe have long invested names with prophetic weight, and Admire fits naturally into that worldview even through the English word. In Western contexts, Admire is genuinely surprising — arresting in a way that makes people pause and reconsider the word itself.
It asks the bearer and the listener both to sit with the concept of admiration: its vulnerability, its generosity, the way it requires looking outward at another person with openness. Few names carry such an active emotional charge, and as diaspora communities bring Zimbabwean naming traditions into wider circulation, Admire is quietly beginning to appear beyond its original home.