Anissa
Feminine · “friendly”
Anissa is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 12,498 girls against 5 boys since 1880.
Anissa is Arabic for friendly and companionable, and it also reached American families through a television character in 1969 — two entirely separate routes to the same word.
How old is the name Anissa?
Anissa first appears in US birth records in 1966 — 59 years ago. The typical Anissa alive today was born around 1994, making them about 31 years old. About 12,000 people named Anissa are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Anissa most popular?
Anissa peaked in 1971, reaching #348 nationally. Today it ranks #3067, 2,719 places below that high. See the whole 1971 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From anisa to Anissa
The story of Anissa
Anisa is an established Arabic given name across the Middle East and North Africa. Its American appearance is separate and datable: a child actress named Anissa appeared in a network series from 1969, and the name enters the registers immediately after, rising through the early 1970s and peaking around 1971.
Meaningscholars disagree
friendly, companionable
The Arabic anisa means 'friendly', 'sociable' or 'good company', from a root about intimacy and companionship, and Anissa is a genuine Arabic name. A second reading treats it as an elaboration of Anna or Agnes. The Arabic route is the better documented one.
How the name formed
- anisa
- Anissa
Related forms: أنيسة · Anisa · Anisa
Pronouncing Anissa
uh-NEE-suh
Three syllables, stress in the middle. Arabic gives the s a fuller quality and the vowels a purer one.
Nicknames for Anissa
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
- 1966
- Most girls named
- 1971724 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #348reached in 1971
- Change vs 2024
- −18.5%53 in 2025, from 65
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.
Anissa in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- أنيسة in Arabic — transliteration
- Anisa in Arabic — same name
- Anisa in English — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Florida.
Anissas among us
people named Anissa are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 30,326 born in 2025 was named Anissa
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Anissa
- #3067
- Anissa on the 2025 chart
- #899
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Anissa went to 53 girls in 2025, but Anyssa is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 61, which makes it the 899th most-given girls’ name of the year — 2,168 places above the chart.
- Anissa53
- Anyssa8
About 1 girl in 26,349 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 30,326 for Anissa 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 Marilynn test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Anissa's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Marilynn climbed just as high around 1944, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Marilynn's path sketches the road Anissa is walking now.
Anissa 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
Where Anissa is headed
Anissa should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
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.
Anissa beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Anissa in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- The Arabic meaning is transparent, undisputed and genuinely warm.
- It is a living name across the Arabic-speaking world.
- Ani and Nissa are two short forms with their own records.
- The origin is split between a real Arabic name and an American television arrival.
- Anisa is the standard Arabic spelling.
- It is closely dated to the 1970s in American records.
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What they receive
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Anissa
Feminine · #3067 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Anissas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 12,000 people named Anissa are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Anissa?
- Anissa is the most-used spelling in US records — 53 of the 61 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Anyssa.
- How popular is the name Anissa in 2025?
- Anissa ranks #3067 among US girl names in 2025, with 53 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Anissa?
- About 1 in every 30,326 US girls born in 2025 was named Anissa — 53 in all.
- Will my child share the name Anissa with classmates?
- Anissa will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Anissa
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Mahnoor#3067 · Melodi#3067 · Xitlaly#3067 · Stacey#3067 · Finlee#3067 · Fabiola#3067 · Evany#3067 · Danni#3067
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Anissa? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Anissa and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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