Anjana
Feminine · “kohl”
Hanuman is named after his mother. In the Ramayana he is Anjaneya, the son of Anjana, and that is unusual enough to be worth saying twice: in a tradition that names sons after fathers, one of its most beloved figures carries his mother's name instead.
How old is the name Anjana?
Anjana first appears in US birth records in 1969 — 56 years ago. The typical Anjana alive today was born around 2006, making them about 19 years old. About 600 people named Anjana are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Anjana most popular?
Anjana peaked in 2013, reaching #4887 nationally. Today it ranks #11932, 7,045 places below that high. See the whole 2013 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From anjana to Anjana
The story of Anjana
Anjana in the epic is a celestial being living as a vanara, and Hanuman is her son by the wind. What is striking is the naming: Anjaneya, formed from her name, is used constantly in temples and hymns, more often than any name formed from his father's. The word itself is entirely ordinary — anjana is what you line your eyes with, used across South Asia for several thousand years and mentioned in medical texts as much as in poetry. There is also, several thousand miles away and unconnected, a set of good fairies in the folklore of Cantabria in northern Spain called the anjanas, which is a coincidence of sound and nothing more.
Meaning
kohl, the black eye ointment
Sanskrit anjana is the word for the black ointment used around the eyes — kohl — and for the mineral it is made from. It is also the name of Hanuman's mother in the Ramayana, and the patronymic Anjaneya, son of Anjana, is one of the commonest names for him in worship.
How the name formed
- anjana
- Anjana
Related forms: Anjana · Anjana · Anjana
Pronouncing Anjana
AHN-jah-nah
Three syllables, stress on the first, with the j as in jam. English readers sometimes say an-JAH-nuh, moving the weight to the middle, which is understood everywhere.
Nicknames for Anjana
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
- 1969
- Most girls named
- 201328 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #4887reached in 2013
- Change vs 2024
- −22.2%7 in 2025, from 9
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.
Anjana in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Anjana in Sanskrit — same name
- Anjana in Hindi — same name
- Anjana in Nepali — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: California.
Anjanas among us
people named Anjana are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 229,610 born in 2025 was named Anjana
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Rainie test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Anjana's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Rainie climbed just as high around 1958, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Rainie's path sketches the road Anjana is walking now.
Anjana 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
Anjana beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Anjana in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A settled Sanskrit meaning that names an ordinary object rather than an abstraction.
- A documented place in one of the two great Indian epics.
- Three short forms, two of which are full names elsewhere.
- It is close to Anjali and Angana, both commoner, and will be confused with them.
- The stress is placed differently by English and Indian speakers.
- Outside South Asian families the reference will need explaining every time.
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What they receive
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Anjana
Feminine · #11932 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Anjanas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 600 people named Anjana are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Anjana in 2025?
- Anjana ranks #11932 among US girl names in 2025, with 7 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Anjana?
- About 1 in every 229,610 US girls born in 2025 was named Anjana — 7 in all.
- Will my child share the name Anjana with classmates?
- Anjana will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Anjana
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Vina#11932 · Retta#11932 · Missouri#11932 · Iola#11932 · Eddie#11932 · Thomas#11932 · Louetta#11932 · Elvina#11932
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Anjana? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Anjana and another name?
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Your gut first, the numbers after — the split shows once you pick.
US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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