Dania
Feminine · “near”
Dania is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 8,818 girls against 5 boys since 1880.
Dania is one of those short names that several unrelated languages arrived at independently. Arabic has dāniya, describing fruit that hangs near enough to reach; Polish has Dania as a homey shortening of Danuta; Spanish and Italian speakers meet it as a trimmed form of Daniela. Three vowels, two syllables, and a long record in American births without ever crowding a classroom.
How old is the name Dania?
Dania first appears in US birth records in 1943 — 82 years ago. The typical Dania alive today was born around 2006, making them about 19 years old. About 8,700 people named Dania are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Dania most popular?
Dania peaked in 1996, reaching #764 nationally. Today it ranks #1063, 299 places below that high. See the whole 1996 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Daniyyel to Dania
The story of Dania
The Arabic name comes from a common root meaning nearness and is used across Arabic-speaking communities in that sense. The European line is quite separate: Daniel, from Hebrew Daniyyel, produced feminine forms — Daniela in Italian, Spanish and the Slavic languages, Danielle in French — and Dania grew out of them as an everyday clipping that then settled down as a name in its own right. In Poland the same two syllables do a different job, standing in for Danuta. Dania is also the Latin word for Denmark, which is why Italian and Spanish speakers reading the name cold sometimes think of the country first.
Meaningscholars disagree
"near, within reach" in Arabic; also "God is my judge" where it comes through Daniel
Two serious readings, and they do not compete so much as coexist. The Arabic دانية (dāniya) is the feminine of dānin, "near, close at hand" — classically used of low-hanging, ripe fruit. Separately, Dania serves as a short form of Daniela and Danielle, which descend from Hebrew Daniyyel, "God is my judge." A third road runs through Polish, where Dania is a familiar shortening of Danuta. Which one applies depends entirely on the family.
How the name formed
- Daniyyel
- Daniel
- Daniela
- Dania
Related forms: دانية (Dāniya) · Danya · Daniya · Daniela · Danielle · Danuta
Pronouncing Dania
DAHN-yah
Two syllables in Arabic and Spanish use, with the middle glide swallowed. Three-syllable DAN-ee-ah is common in English, and some families say DAY-nee-ah on the pattern of Dana. All are in genuine use, so the pronunciation is worth stating once when you introduce her.
Nicknames for Dania
High
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
- 1943
- Most girls named
- 2023312 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #764reached in 1996
- Change vs 2023
- −26.6%229 in 2025, from 312
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.
Dania in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- دانية (Dāniya) in Arabic — transliteration
- Danya in English — spelling variant
- Daniya in Arabic (romanized) — spelling variant
- Daniela in Spanish / Italian — related form
- Danielle in French — related form
- Danuta in Polish — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, California, New York.
Danias among us
people named Dania are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 7,019 born in 2025 was named Dania
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Dania
- #1063
- Dania on the 2025 chart
- #639
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Dania went to 229 girls in 2025, but Daniyah, Danya and Daniya and the rest below are the same name said out loud. Together the 6 spellings went to 342, which makes it the 639th most-given girls’ name of the year — 424 places above the chart.
About 1 girl in 4,700 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 7,019 for Dania 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 Marita test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Dania's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Marita climbed just as high around 1938, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Marita's path sketches the road Dania is walking now.
Dania 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 Dania is headed
Dania 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.
Dania beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Dania in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Spelled exactly as it sounds in most languages — five letters, no silent ones, no doubled consonants to explain over the phone.
- Works in Arabic-, Spanish- and English-speaking settings without translation or adjustment, which is rarer than it looks in a short name.
- Dani is a ready-made short form already familiar to everyone, with no need to invent one.
- An unbroken presence in American birth records across many decades, so it reads as established rather than newly coined.
- The pronunciation genuinely varies — DAHN-yah, DAN-ee-ah, DAY-nee-ah — so she will spend some of her life correcting people, or quietly accepting more than one version.
- It is close enough to Dana, Danna, Daniela and Danya that mishearings and misspellings will happen, especially on forms and rosters.
- Italian and Spanish speakers may register the name as the word for Denmark, and there is a city called Dania Beach in Florida. Neither is a problem, only a thing people occasionally mention.
- Very likely the only one in her class, which most children enjoy — though it also means the name will need saying twice on first meeting.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
Someone added a name to your list
Dania
Feminine · #1063 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Danias are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 8,700 people named Dania are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Dania?
- Dania is the most-used spelling in US records — 229 of the 342 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Daniyah, Danya, Daniya, Dannia and Daniah.
- How popular is the name Dania in 2025?
- Dania ranks #1063 among US girl names in 2025, with 229 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Dania?
- About 1 in every 7,019 US girls born in 2025 was named Dania — 229 in all.
- Will my child share the name Dania with classmates?
- Dania will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Dania
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Kalia#1063 · Ellen#1062 · Casey#1065 · Jalani#1065 · Chiara#1065 · Ellison#1065 · Dua#1060 · Giavanna#1060
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Dania? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Dania and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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