Padmé is from the Sanskrit padma (पद्म) — "lotus" — the sacred flower of Hindu and Buddhist iconography, associated with the goddesses Lakshmi and Saraswati, and the most-pictured plant in Asian religious art. George Lucas chose the name for Padmé Amidala — Queen and Senator of Naboo, secret wife of Anakin Skywalker, and mother of Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia in the Star Wars prequel trilogy (1999-2005). *Played by Natalie Portman across The Phantom Menace (1999), Attack of the Clones (2002), and Revenge of the Sith (2005); appears posthumously in Rogue One and Obi-Wan Kenobi; voiced by Catherine Taber in The Clone Wars (2008-2020). As Queen Amidala, she became Star Wars' first onscreen elected monarch — chosen by Naboo voters at age 14. The most-cosplayed Star Wars character outside the original trilogy according to D23 surveys. A top-1000 US baby name since 2002 driven by the prequels' release. "Om Mani Padme Hum"* — Tibetan Buddhist mantra meaning "praise to the jewel in the lotus."
Featured throughout the Star Wars saga and Buddhist devotional practice.
Padmé does not currently appear in the US Social Security Administration's top 1,000 girls' names, so we don't publish a US rank or birth count for it. That says nothing about the name's standing elsewhere in the world — only that it sits outside the ranked US data we rely on.
In Pythagorean numerology the letters of Padmé reduce to 9, The Giver. This is a traditional interpretive system, not a factual claim about the name.