Dannah
Feminine · “Hebrew Channah”
Hannah reads the same backwards, which almost no name does. English has Anna, Ava, Elle, Bob, Otto and Eve and then runs out. Palindromic names are rare because most names carry a suffix, and a suffix at one end and nothing at the other breaks the symmetry immediately. Dannah is Hannah with the symmetry broken.
How old is the name Dannah?
Dannah first appears in US birth records in 1965 — 60 years ago. The typical Dannah alive today was born around 2002, making them about 23 years old. About 600 people named Dannah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Dannah most popular?
Dannah peaked in 1965, reaching #4202 nationally. Today it ranks #8860, 4,658 places below that high. See the whole 1965 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Channah to Dannah
Our story of Dannah
Our reading is that the rarity of palindromic names says something about how names are built. A palindrome requires the word to be symmetrical, and names in most European languages are not symmetrical objects: they consist of a stem plus an ending, and the ending is doing grammatical or social work that has no counterpart at the front. Anna and Hannah survive as palindromes because they are short and because the -a and the h- happen to balance. Ava, Elle, Otto, Bob and Eve are all short for the same reason. Once a name has three syllables the chance of symmetry is effectively nil. Dannah is a good illustration of the fragility: change one letter of a palindrome and it stops being one, and nothing else about the name changes at all. Whether anyone chose it for that reason is another matter, and almost certainly not.
Meaningscholars disagree
Hebrew Channah, favor or grace
Dannah is most likely a blend or variant of Hannah and Dana, or a feminine of Dan, from Hebrew din, to judge. It is separately a place name in Joshua 15:49, a town in the hill country of Judah mentioned once and not identified. Hannah is from channah, favor or grace. It peaks in the American data in 1965.
How the name formed
- Channah
- Hannah
- Dannah
Related forms: Hannah · Dana
Pronouncing Dannah
DAN-ah
Two syllables, stress on the first, short a. The doubled n marks the vowel short and the terminal h marks the final vowel as full. Dannah and Danna are homophones.
Nicknames for Dannah
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
- 1965
- Most girls named
- 199926 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #4202reached in 1965
- Change vs 2024
- −15.4%11 in 2025, from 13
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.
Dannah in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Hannah in English — related form
- Dana in English — related form
Dannahs among us
people named Dannah are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 146,115 born in 2025 was named Dannah
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Dannah
- #8860
- Dannah on the 2025 chart
- #299
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Dannah went to 11 girls in 2025, but Danna, Dana and Danah are the same name said out loud. Together the 4 spellings went to 1,053, which makes it the 299th most-given girls’ name of the year — 8,561 places above the chart.
About 1 girl in 1,526 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 146,115 for Dannah 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 Armando test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Dannah's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Armando climbed just as high around 1935, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Armando's path sketches the road Dannah is walking now.
Dannah 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
Dannah beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Dannah in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- The Hebrew root behind Hannah is settled and warm.
- Anna is available as a short form and a complete name.
- The spelling is unambiguous in both vowels.
- Hannah and Dana are both far more common.
- Danna, Dannah and Dana all circulate.
- No single derivation can be given.
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Dannah
Feminine · #8860 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Dannahs are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 600 people named Dannah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Dannah?
- Dannah is one of 4 recorded spellings. Danna is the more common one — 787 births in 2025 against 11 for Dannah.
- How popular is the name Dannah in 2025?
- Dannah ranks #8860 among US girl names in 2025, with 11 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Dannah?
- About 1 in every 146,115 US girls born in 2025 was named Dannah — 11 in all.
- Will my child share the name Dannah with classmates?
- Dannah will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Dannah
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Lida#8860 · Lauretta#8860 · Dot#8860 · Bonita#8860 · Benita#8860 · Trixie#8860 · Adna#8860 · Sue#8860
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Dannah? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Dannah and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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