Charna
Feminine · “black”
Yiddish borrowed its women's names from wherever it lived. Charna comes from a Slavic word for black — the same one behind the Russian chorny and the Polish czarny — and it was given to daughters in Eastern Europe as a description of hair or coloring. It is one of a set of Yiddish names taken from neighboring languages rather than from Hebrew.
How old is the name Charna?
Charna first appears in US birth records in 1928 — 97 years ago. The typical Charna alive today was born around 1979, making them about 46 years old. About 500 people named Charna are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Charna most popular?
Charna peaked in 1942, reaching #2666 nationally. Today it ranks #14942, 12,276 places below that high. See the whole 1942 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From charna to Charna
The story of Charna
Jewish communities in Eastern Europe commonly gave a child two names: a Hebrew one used in the synagogue and a vernacular one used everywhere else. The vernacular names came from Yiddish, which drew freely on German and Slavic vocabulary, and a great many of them describe appearance or convey a wish. Charna belongs to that stock. It reached American records with the migrations of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, appears from 1928, and remains concentrated in New York.
Meaning
black, dark
From a Slavic word for black, borrowed into Yiddish as charna or charne. Yiddish took a large stock of women's names from the surrounding languages — Sheine from German for beautiful, Golde from gold, Fradel and Bluma from other roots — and used them alongside the Hebrew ones, often as a secular name paired with a Hebrew one for religious use.
How the name formed
- charna
- Charna
Related forms: Charne · Czarna · Chernaya
Pronouncing Charna
CHAR-nah
Two syllables, stress on the first, with the ch said as in church. Some families use the Yiddish and Hebrew guttural instead — a sound made in the back of the throat — which English cannot produce and generally replaces with a k or a plain ch.
Nicknames for Charna
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
- 1928
- Most girls named
- 196514 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #2666reached in 1942
- Change vs 2024
- −28.6%5 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.
Charna in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Charne in Yiddish — same name
- Czarna in Polish — related form
- Chernaya in Russian — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: New York.
Charnas among us
people named Charna are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 321,453 born in 2025 was named Charna
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 Julanne test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Charna's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Julanne climbed just as high around 1924, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Julanne's path sketches the road Charna is walking now.
Charna 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
Charna beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Charna in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- It belongs to a real Yiddish naming tradition rather than being an American coinage.
- The meaning is a single concrete word and takes one syllable to give.
- Six letters, two syllables, and easy in any accent.
- It is genuinely rare, so a child will not meet another.
- The opening consonant is said two ways depending on the family, and English cannot manage one of them.
- Charne, Tcharna and Czarna all appear in older records.
- It belongs to an older American generation and carries that flavor.
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What they receive
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Charna
Feminine · #14942 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Charnas 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 Charna are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Charna in 2025?
- Charna ranks #14942 among US girl names in 2025, with 5 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Charna?
- About 1 in every 321,453 US girls born in 2025 was named Charna — 5 in all.
- Will my child share the name Charna with classmates?
- Charna will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Charna
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Hester#14942 · Lyda#14942 · Zula#14942 · Zona#14942 · Ula#14942 · Belva#14942 · Lucetta#14942 · Leala#14942
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Charna? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Charna and another name?
See them side by side — full stats, history and a gentle verdict.
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Which one would you pick?
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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