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It's both!

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And in many countries the female use is much more common than the male one. Some examples:

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Sweden:
147 women 12 men

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Norway
34 women 0 men

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Denmark
34 women 0 men

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And in German name books you will always find the name in the female section, sometimes with the remark that it's allowed to use it as a male name, too (but then you have to add an unmistakable male name to make sure everybody understands that it is a male person.

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Ira for females is short for Irina, Irena and any name ending with -ira like Elvira, Saphira, Kira, Mira etc.

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By the way - the pronunciation of the name in the countries I talked about is EE-rah, not EYE-rah!

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Regards, Satu

It's female to me

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That's the first time I hear it can be a male name. As far as I know, Ira is the latinized version of Hera. I have also heard it as short from Irina / Irena.

Nope. Ira's 100% male to me. And this should be on the other board.

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a

I know it's used as a female name in Ukraine.

Definatly. Sounds like a girls name. But if U added anna at the end it would sound more so. iranna. cool eh?

Do you mean because of Annette Bening's daughter Isabel Ira Ashley?
It's a male name to me, but I can see the female association.