Alenna
Feminine · “O child (Irish)”
Alanna in Irish is not a name at all. It is a leanbh, O child, a term of address a mother uses, frozen in the vocative case; English speakers heard it in songs and stories and took the whole phrase for a woman's name.
How old is the name Alenna?
Alenna first appears in US birth records in 1968 — 57 years ago. The typical Alenna is a kid of about 12 — this name's wave is very recent. About 500 people named Alenna are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Alenna most popular?
Alenna peaked in 2015, reaching #4144 nationally. Today it ranks #6546, 2,402 places below that high. See the whole 2015 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From a leanbh to Alenna
The story of Alenna
Irish has a vocative particle, a, used when addressing someone, and it changes the following word; a leanbh, O child, is one of the commonest terms of endearment in the language. Anglo-Irish writers of the nineteenth century transcribed it as alanna in dialogue, and English readers who did not know Irish grammar read it as a woman's name. Meanwhile the Slavic Alena has its own quite separate life as a short form of Magdalena, standard across the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Alenna, with the doubled n, is an American spelling that sits between them, and its best year in United States records is 2015.
Meaningscholars disagree
O child (Irish), or a Slavic form of Magdalena
Two routes. Irish a leanbh, pronounced roughly a-lanuv, is a vocative endearment meaning O child, and it produced the English name Alanna by mishearing. Separately, Czech and Slovak Alena is a genuine short form, and it shortens Magdalena rather than Helena, which surprises most people. Alenna sits between the two spellings and can descend from either.
How the name formed
- a leanbh
- Alanna
- Alenna
Related forms: Alena · Alannah · Alyona
Pronouncing Alenna
uh-LEN-uh
Three syllables with the stress in the middle. Czech says AH-leh-nah with the weight at the front, which is a different rhythm for the same letters.
Nicknames for Alenna
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
- 1968
- Most girls named
- 201535 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #4144reached in 2015
- Change vs 2024
- −19.0%17 in 2025, from 21
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.
Alenna in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Alena in Czech — related form
- Alannah in Irish — spelling variant
- Alyona in Russian — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas.
Alennas among us
people named Alenna are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 94,545 born in 2025 was named Alenna
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Alenna
- #6546
- Alenna on the 2025 chart
- #350
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Alenna went to 17 girls in 2025, but Aleena, Alena and Aleenah and the rest below are the same name said out loud. Together the 6 spellings went to 878, which makes it the 350th most-given girls’ name of the year — 6,196 places above the chart.
About 1 girl in 1,831 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 94,545 for Alenna 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 Richa test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Alenna's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Richa climbed just as high around 1998, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Richa's path sketches the road Alenna is walking now.
Alenna 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
Alenna beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Alenna in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Two genuine traditions behind it, one Irish and one Slavic.
- Lena is a ready short form used across half of Europe.
- Soft, open syllables throughout and easy to say.
- Alanna, Alana and Alena are all more common and split the records.
- The Irish route is a phrase rather than a name, which some families mind.
- Czech and American stress patterns differ.
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What they receive
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Alenna
Feminine · #6546 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Alennas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 500 people named Alenna are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Alenna?
- Alenna is one of 6 recorded spellings. Aleena is the more common one — 436 births in 2025 against 17 for Alenna.
- How popular is the name Alenna in 2025?
- Alenna ranks #6546 among US girl names in 2025, with 17 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Alenna?
- About 1 in every 94,545 US girls born in 2025 was named Alenna — 17 in all.
- Will my child share the name Alenna with classmates?
- Alenna will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Alenna
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Roseann#6546 · Solveig#6546 · Elona#6546 · Rosette#6546 · Bradie#6546 · Rida#6546 · Gwendalyn#6546 · Lorene#6546
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Alenna? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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