Alana
Feminine · “Feminine form of Alan”
Alana is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 68,264 girls against 31 boys since 1880.
Alana is the feminine form of Alan, a name Breton nobles carried into England at the Norman Conquest and which has been in continuous English use ever since. Three syllables, all open vowels, stress in the middle — it shortens to Lana without any effort at all. The same spelling works unchanged in Spanish and Portuguese.
How old is the name Alana?
Alana first appears in US birth records in 1930 — 95 years ago. The typical Alana alive today was born around 2006, making them about 19 years old. About 66,500 people named Alana are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Alana most popular?
Alana peaked in 2025, reaching #140 nationally. Today it ranks #140, exactly where it peaked. See the whole 2025 chart.
Where it comes from
From Alan (Breton) to Alana
The story of Alana
Alan was a Breton favorite before it was an English one, and it crossed the Channel with the Breton lords who came in the train of William the Conqueror in the eleventh century. From there it settled into England and Scotland, took the form Alain in France and Alun in Wales, and kept going without a serious break for nine hundred years. Alana is the feminine built from it in modern English-speaking use, and it traveled well: it is at home in Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking countries with no change of spelling. The Irish-flavored spellings Alanna and Alannah sit close by, reinforced by the old anglicized endearment alannah, from Irish a leanbh, 'O child'.
Meaningscholars disagree
Feminine form of Alan, whose own root is disputed; separately, a Hawaiian word for an offering
Two lines of explanation compete for Alan. One traces it to a Brythonic or Breton root and reads it as 'rock' or 'handsome'; the other connects it to the Alans, the Iranian steppe people some of whom settled in Gaul in late antiquity. Neither has won. Alongside that, Hawaiian has its own word alana, meaning an offering, which is a genuinely independent source for the same spelling — so an Alana in Hawaii and an Alana in Ohio may be carrying two different names that happen to look alike.
How the name formed
- AlanBreton
- AlainFrench
- AlanEnglish
- Alana
Related forms: Alana · Alana · Alanna · Alannah · Alaina · Alaine
Pronouncing Alana
uh-LAH-nuh
Also said uh-LAN-uh, with the vowel of 'can'. Both are in real use in the US, so whichever you pick will need stating now and then.
Nicknames for Alana
High
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
- 1930
- Most girls named
- 20062,121 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #140reached in 2025
- Change vs 2023
- +28.9%2,085 in 2025, from 1,618
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.
Alana in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Alana in Spanish — same name
- Alana in Portuguese — same name
- Alanna in English — spelling variant
- Alannah in English / Irish — spelling variant
- Alaina in English — related form
- Alaine in French — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Florida, Texas.
Alanas among us
people named Alana are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 771 born in 2025 was named Alana
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Alana
- #140
- Alana on the 2025 chart
- #82
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Alana went to 2,085 girls in 2025, but Alanna, Alannah and Alanah and the rest below are the same name said out loud. Together the 6 spellings went to 3,429, which makes it the 82nd most-given girls’ name of the year — 58 places above the chart.
and 1 rarer spelling.
About 1 girl in 469 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 771 for Alana 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
The Meredith test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Alana's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Meredith climbed just as high around 1980, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Meredith's path sketches the road Alana is walking now.
Alana is climbing fast right now. Steep climbs tend to come with steep descents — the quicker a name arrives, the more firmly it belongs to its moment.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Alana is headed
Alana looks set to keep climbing gently, with roughly 18% more babies a year by 2030 if the current curve holds.
Medium confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Alana beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Alana in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Spelled the way it sounds in every language that uses it — no silent letters, no ambiguous consonants.
- Carries two ready-made short forms, Lana and Allie, both of which already stand alone as names.
- Works unchanged in English, Spanish and Portuguese, which matters in a household or a family tree that spans more than one.
- Two pronunciations circulate — uh-LAH-nuh and uh-LAN-uh — and neither is wrong. Expect to correct people occasionally, and to hear both from teachers over the years.
- The near-identical spellings Alanna, Alannah, Alaina and Elana all exist, so the name will be spelled back to you incorrectly from time to time.
- It is climbing steadily rather than sitting still, so her class may hold more Alanas than the current picture suggests — though nothing near the level where a surname initial becomes necessary.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Alana
Feminine · #140 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Alanas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 66,500 people named Alana are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Alana?
- Alana is the most-used spelling in US records — 2,085 of the 3,429 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Alanna, Alannah, Alanah and Allana.
- How popular is the name Alana in 2025?
- Alana ranks #140 among US girl names in 2025, with 2,085 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Alana?
- About 1 in every 771 US girls born in 2025 was named Alana — 2,085 in all.
- Will my child share the name Alana with classmates?
- Alana will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Alana
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Elliana#139 · Sloane#141 · Emersyn#138 · Melanie#142 · Rylee#137 · Brielle#143 · Bella#136 · Natalia#144
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Alana? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Alana and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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