New Baby Name

Anna

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Girl · Hebrew, through Greek

Anna

Say it: AN-uh

Try it with your surname

Meaning

Greek and Latin form of Hebrew Ḥannah, 'grace, favour'.

Certainscholars agree on this meaning.

Spread through the cult of Saint Anne, held to be the mother of Mary in the apocryphal Gospel of James.

Its wave through time

Fading since the 1890s

In the United States

01020304018801900192019401960198020002020Peak 1885per 1,000 babies of that sex
  • 903,035 babies given this name since 1880
  • At its height in 1891, about 1 in 36 girls
  • 3,484 babies in 2020

Through the ages

  1. The Biblical WorldAbout 1200 BC to AD 100
  2. Ancient Rome750 BC to AD 476
  3. The Early Middle Ages400 to 800
  4. The High and Late Middle Ages1100 to 1450
  5. The Renaissance1400 to 1600
  6. The Colonial Americas1500 to 1800
  7. The Age of Revolutions1750 to 1837
  8. Victorian and Belle Époque1837 to 1914
  9. The Modern Age1880 to today

Used by

HebrewEarly ChristianEnglishFrenchGermanItalianPolishRussianSwedishCzechSlovakUkrainianSerbianCroatianBulgarianGreekAmerican

The family of the name

Other spellings: Ana, Ann, Hanna, Ania

FrenchAnne
SpanishAna
ItalianAnna
PortugueseAna
GermanAnna
PolishAnna
RussianAnna
HebrewHannah

Famous bearers

  • Anna, the prophetess in Luke 2
  • Anna Pavlova, Russian ballerina
  • Anna of Kiev, Queen of France

Names worth a look

Where this comes from

  • The Hebrew Bible and the New Testament
  • The Apocrypha and other early religious writings
  • Calendars of saints and name days
  • National birth statistics of European countries source
  • Royal and noble genealogies
  • Lives of the saints and early Christian martyrologies
  • United States Social Security birth records, 1880 to today source
  • United States Social Security birth records, 1880 to today source

Meanings and histories are compiled from the study of names and their languages and checked by a second review.

Meanings and histories are drawn from the study of names and their languages, each with a confidence rating; popularity figures come from official birth records. Name histories are a living field: if you know of a correction, we would be glad to hear it.