Arantza
Feminine · “thorn”
Arantza is Basque for a thorn, and the thorn is the point. It comes from a shrine in the Basque mountains where, according to the story, a shepherd found an image of the Virgin in a hawthorn — and asked her, in Basque, what she was doing there.
How old is the name Arantza?
Arantza first appears in US birth records in 1996 — 29 years ago. The typical Arantza is a kid of about 9 — this name's wave is very recent. About 1,200 people named Arantza are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Arantza most popular?
Arantza peaked in 2014, reaching #1321 nationally. Today it ranks #2895, 1,574 places below that high. See the whole 2014 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From arantza to Arantza
The story of Arantza
Arantzazu is a sanctuary in the mountains of Gipuzkoa, and the Virgin of Arantzazu is the patron of the province. Basque Catholic families took the shrine name as a girls' name in the same way Spanish families took Guadalupe and Lourdes, and Arantza, Arantxa and Arantzazu are all in use. The name spread beyond the Basque Country into wider Spanish use in the twentieth century, particularly after Basque names became legal to register again in Spain, and it reaches United States records with Spanish and Mexican families.
Meaning
thorn; hawthorn
Basque arantza means a thorn or a thorn bush, and it is an ordinary word in the language. The shrine name Arantzazu is generally read as 'you, in the thorn' — the question the shepherd is said to have asked. The reading is documented within Basque, which is a language isolate with no relatives, so its vocabulary cannot be traced any further back.
How the name formed
- arantza
- Arantzazu
- Arantza
Related forms: Arantzazu · Arantxa · Aranza
Pronouncing Arantza
ah-RAHN-tsah
Three syllables with the stress in the middle. The tz is a single ts sound in Basque, not a z. The variant Arantxa uses tx, which is a ch sound — the two spellings are genuinely different names by ear.
Nicknames for Arantza
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
- 1996
- Most girls named
- 2014179 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1321reached in 2014
- Change vs 2024
- +18.4%58 in 2025, from 49
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.
Arantza in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Arantzazu in Basque — related form
- Arantxa in Basque — spelling variant
- Aranza in Spanish — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, California, Florida.
Arantzas among us
people named Arantza are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 27,712 born in 2025 was named Arantza
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 Toy test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Arantza's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Toy climbed just as high around 1906, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Toy's path sketches the road Arantza is walking now.
Arantza 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 Arantza is headed
Arantza 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.
Arantza beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Arantza in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A documented Basque word from a language unrelated to anything else on earth.
- Ara and Arantxa are both natural short forms, one of them a full name.
- Three syllables that read correctly in Spanish and Basque alike.
- The tz will be read as a z by English speakers, which changes the middle of the name.
- Arantza, Arantxa, Aranza and Arancha all circulate and are said differently from each other.
- Outside Spanish-speaking communities it will be spelled out every time.
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What they receive
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Arantza
Feminine · #2895 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Arantzas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,200 people named Arantza are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Arantza in 2025?
- Arantza ranks #2895 among US girl names in 2025, with 58 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Arantza?
- About 1 in every 27,712 US girls born in 2025 was named Arantza — 58 in all.
- Will my child share the name Arantza with classmates?
- Arantza will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Arantza
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Noora#2895 · Mylie#2895 · Vanellope#2895 · Amore#2895 · Miamor#2895 · Alyah#2895 · Alaska#2895 · Anastacia#2895
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Arantza? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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