Pema (པདྨ) is the Tibetan word for "lotus" — derived from the Sanskrit padma. The lotus is sacred in Tibetan Buddhism, representing the awakening of consciousness from the mud of ignorance.
Pema is widely used in Tibet, Bhutan, and the Tibetan diaspora. Pema Chödrön (born 1936), the American-born Tibetan Buddhist nun and author, is the most internationally known bearer.
Pema 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 Pema reduce to 8, The Visionary. This is a traditional interpretive system, not a factual claim about the name.