Daina
Feminine · “Latvian and Lithuanian daina”
Daina is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 2,522 girls against 5 boys since 1880.
A daina is a Latvian folk song, and there are more than a million of them. Krisjanis Barons spent forty years sorting them into a purpose-built cabinet of seventy thousand slips, and the collection is now on the UNESCO register as one of the largest bodies of oral poetry ever assembled.
How old is the name Daina?
Daina first appears in US birth records in 1924 — 101 years ago. The typical Daina alive today was born around 1979, making them about 46 years old. About 2,400 people named Daina are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Daina most popular?
Daina peaked in 1964, reaching #1172 nationally. Today it ranks #9457, 8,285 places below that high. See the whole 1964 chart.
Where it comes from
From daina to Daina
The story of Daina
Latvian dainas are short, usually four lines, unrhymed, in a fixed meter, and they cover the whole of life: work, weather, courtship, grief, the sun, orphans, brewing. Krisjanis Barons began collecting them in the 1870s and spent decades organizing the material into a cabinet of small drawers holding around seventy thousand slips, each carrying a song and its variants. The result, published between 1894 and 1915, runs to six volumes and about two hundred and eighteen thousand texts; the full corpus of variants exceeds a million. The cabinet itself survives and is a national object. What makes the collection unusual is that it was assembled while the tradition was still living and by a people without a state, and it became one of the foundations on which Latvian national identity was built.
Meaningscholars disagree
Latvian and Lithuanian daina, a folk song
Daina is Latvian and Lithuanian for a traditional folk song, and it is used as a given name in both countries. The word's own origin is uncertain and has been connected to an Indo-European root for thinking or singing. In American records the spelling also serves as a variant of Dana or Dena. The peak is 1964.
How the name formed
- daina
- Daina
Related forms: Daina · Daina · Dayna
Pronouncing Daina
DY-nah
Two syllables, stress on the first. Latvian and Lithuanian say the ai as the i of mine. Americans often say DAY-nah instead.
Nicknames for Daina
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
- 1924
- Most girls named
- 196488 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1172reached in 1964
- Change vs 2023
- −9.1%10 in 2025, from 11
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.
Daina in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Daina in Latvian — same name
- Daina in Lithuanian — same name
- Dayna in English — spelling variant
Dainas among us
people named Daina are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 160,727 born in 2025 was named Daina
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Daina
- #9457
- Daina on the 2025 chart
- #933
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Daina went to 10 girls in 2025, but Dayna is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 27, which makes it the 933rd most-given girls’ name of the year — 8,524 places above the chart.
- Dayna17
- Daina10
About 1 girl in 59,528 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 160,727 for Daina 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 Pasqualina test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Daina's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Pasqualina climbed just as high around 1911, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Pasqualina's path sketches the road Daina is walking now.
Daina 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
Daina beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Daina in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Five letters and two syllables, easy to say.
- The meaning is a single concrete word with a rich tradition behind it.
- It is a genuine name in two Baltic languages.
- The first vowel is said two ways in English.
- Dana and Dayna are both commoner in American use.
- The Baltic association is unfamiliar to most Americans.
Nobody names a baby alone.
Put Daina to the vote.
Add it to a family vote or a couple’s swipe deck — the other person gets one card, a simple answer and room to say why. No app, no account for them.
Only the people you invite can see your list.
Already decided on Daina? Hide it among decoys and let them guess.
What they receive
Someone added a name to your list
Daina
Feminine · #9457 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Dainas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 2,400 people named Daina are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Daina?
- Daina is one of 2 recorded spellings. Dayna is the more common one — 17 births in 2025 against 10 for Daina.
- How popular is the name Daina in 2025?
- Daina ranks #9457 among US girl names in 2025, with 10 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Daina?
- About 1 in every 160,727 US girls born in 2025 was named Daina — 10 in all.
- Will my child share the name Daina with classmates?
- Daina will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Daina
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Leta#9457 · Inga#9457 · Delphia#9457 · Cammie#9457 · Lisandra#9457 · Amee#9457 · Venecia#9457 · Annetta#9457
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Daina? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Daina and another name?
See them side by side — full stats, history and a gentle verdict.
Compare side by sideIn a hurry? Just pick a winner — one tap, no sign-up, and you see how everyone else voted.
Weighing a whole shortlist? Add the rest in the builder, or settle it with a bracket.
Cast your vote
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
No advertising trackers and no data sellinghow we handle your dataindependent and founder-run, about Name Battle