Adena
Feminine · “delicate”
Adena is a small Hebrew word about softness. The root means delicate or tender, and it appears in the Hebrew Bible more often as a description than as a name. It also happens to be the name Americans gave to an ancient mound-building culture in the Ohio valley — a coincidence of spelling with nothing behind it, but one worth knowing about in advance.
How old is the name Adena?
Adena first appears in US birth records in 1902 — 123 years ago. The typical Adena alive today was born around 1980, making them about 45 years old. About 1,500 people named Adena are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Adena most popular?
Adena peaked in 1902, reaching #1793 nationally. Today it ranks #13208, 11,415 places below that high. See the whole 1902 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From adin to Adena
The story of Adena
Modern Hebrew naming, from the nineteenth century onward, built new names deliberately out of ordinary words — light, dew, song, gentleness — and Adena and Adina both belong to that project. They traveled with Jewish families to America, where they have been used quietly for over a century. The other Adena is unrelated in every way: American archaeologists named a prehistoric culture of the Ohio valley after the estate where its first excavated mound stood, and that estate had been given a fashionable-sounding name by its owner. Two Adenas, no connection.
Meaning
delicate, tender
From the Hebrew adin, meaning delicate, gentle or refined. The name is a straightforward feminine formation from that adjective, and it belongs to the modern Hebrew naming tradition rather than to the biblical stock, where the word appears but the name does not.
How the name formed
- adin
- Adina
- Adena
Related forms: Adina · Adine
Pronouncing Adena
uh-DEE-nuh
Three syllables, stress in the middle. Hebrew says Adina with the weight at the end, a-di-NA, which is a real difference; the American version has been settled for a long time.
Nicknames for Adena
Moderate
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1902
- Most girls named
- 198337 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1793reached in 1902
- Change vs 2023
- −60.0%6 in 2025, from 15
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Adena in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Adina in Hebrew — same name
- Adine in Yiddish — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California.
Adenas among us
people named Adena are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 267,878 born in 2025 was named Adena
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Adena
- #13208
- Adena on the 2025 chart
- #945
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Adena went to 6 girls in 2025, but Adeena is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 15, which makes it the 945th most-given girls’ name of the year — 12,263 places above the chart.
- Adeena9
- Adena6
About 1 girl in 107,151 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 267,878 for Adena itself.
Spellings are grouped by a fixed rule that folds interchangeable English spellings of one sound (ck/k, ph/f, x/ks, a non-initial y for i) and keeps vowels apart, so Sean and Shawn stay separate names. It errs towards splitting: a family here is never larger than the truth. SSA national data, 2025. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
Fashion outlook
Adena sits in the calm middle of the cycle — neither chasing a wave nor sliding off one. Middle-of-the-cycle names age slowly and predictably.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Adena beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Adena in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- The meaning is one gentle word and is easy to give in a sentence.
- Dena and Addie are both available and belong to different decades.
- Five letters, three syllables, all of them open and easy in any accent.
- It belongs to a living naming tradition rather than to a fashion.
- Adina is the commoner spelling and will be written instead by anyone who knows the Hebrew name.
- It is easily confused with Adena the archaeological culture, particularly in Ohio, where the word is on museum signs.
- Athena and Andrea both sit close enough in sound to cause mishearing.
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Adena
Feminine · #13208 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Adenas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,500 people named Adena are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Adena?
- Adena is one of 2 recorded spellings. Adeena is the more common one — 9 births in 2025 against 6 for Adena.
- How popular is the name Adena in 2025?
- Adena ranks #13208 among US girl names in 2025, with 6 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Adena?
- About 1 in every 267,878 US girls born in 2025 was named Adena — 6 in all.
- Will my child share the name Adena with classmates?
- Adena will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Adena
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
John#13208 · Vinnie#13208 · Margery#13208 · Jossie#13208 · Tressa#13208 · Erie#13208 · Bernadine#13208 · Euna#13208
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Adena? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Adena and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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