Annisa
Feminine · “friendly”
Two very different things could be behind this spelling, and both are real. One is Arabic anisah, friendly. The other is An-Nisa, the fourth chapter of the Qur'an, whose title means The Women. They are unrelated words that happen to meet at the same letters.
How old is the name Annisa?
Annisa first appears in US birth records in 1967 — 58 years ago. The typical Annisa alive today was born around 1996, making them about 29 years old. About 700 people named Annisa are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Annisa most popular?
Annisa peaked in 1969, reaching #2585 nationally. Today it ranks #10917, 8,332 places below that high. See the whole 1969 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From anisah to Annisa
The story of Annisa
Arabic has a rule that shows up in a great many names. The definite article al- keeps its l before some consonants and assimilates to others: al-nisa is said and written an-nisa, al-rahman becomes ar-rahman, al-shams becomes ash-shams. So the doubled n of Annisa is a fossil of the article in the sura title An-Nisa, The Women. The other Annisa has nothing to do with any of that: it is the personal name Anisah respelled by English speakers, who double consonants readily. The spelling also has an American television history — a network family sitcom that ran five years from the mid-1960s starred a child actor whose first name was Anissa, and the doubled-n version followed the doubled-s one into the records.
Meaningscholars disagree
friendly — or, in the other reading, the women
Anisah, from the Arabic root for companionship, is the older personal name. An-Nisa, the women, is the title of the fourth sura of the Qur'an and is given as a name particularly in Indonesia and Malaysia, usually written Annisa or Nisa. The doubled n suits either, and American records do not distinguish them.
How the name formed
- anisah
- Anissa
- Annisa
Related forms: Anisa · Annisa · Nisa · Anisa
Pronouncing Annisa
ah-NEE-sah
Three syllables, stress on the middle. In the Indonesian reading the doubled n is actually heard: an-NEE-sa. Americans commonly say uh-NISS-uh with a short i instead, which is the Anissa saying carried over.
Nicknames for Annisa
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
- 1967
- Most girls named
- 196926 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #2585reached in 1969
- Change vs 2022
- +14.3%8 in 2025, from 7
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.
Annisa in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Anisa in Arabic — spelling variant
- Annisa in Indonesian — same name
- Nisa in Malay — related form
- Anisa in Bosnian — same name
Annisas among us
people named Annisa are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 200,908 born in 2025 was named Annisa
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Annisa
- #10917
- Annisa on the 2025 chart
- #876
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Annisa went to 8 girls in 2025, but Anisa, Anisah and Aniza are the same name said out loud. Together the 4 spellings went to 84, which makes it the 876th most-given girls’ name of the year — 10,041 places above the chart.
About 1 girl in 19,134 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 200,908 for Annisa 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 Bethene test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Annisa's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Bethene climbed just as high around 1929, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Bethene's path sketches the road Annisa is walking now.
Annisa 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
Annisa beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Annisa in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Both possible sources are documented and neither is invented.
- It is in use on two continents, which few American spellings can claim.
- Nisa and Annie are ready-made short forms from different traditions.
- Anissa is the commoner American spelling, and this one will be read as a misspelling of it.
- The two possible sources mean different things, and the name does not tell you which you have.
- The stress and the vowel differ between the American and the Indonesian saying.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Annisa
Feminine · #10917 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Annisas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 700 people named Annisa are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Annisa?
- Annisa is one of 4 recorded spellings. Anisa is the more common one — 62 births in 2025 against 8 for Annisa.
- How popular is the name Annisa in 2025?
- Annisa ranks #10917 among US girl names in 2025, with 8 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Annisa?
- About 1 in every 200,908 US girls born in 2025 was named Annisa — 8 in all.
- Will my child share the name Annisa with classmates?
- Annisa will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Annisa
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Edythe#10917 · Tessie#10917 · Drusilla#10917 · Eugenie#10917 · Ivah#10917 · Karri#10917 · Claribel#10917 · Myrtle#10917
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Annisa? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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