Gena
Feminine · “queen”
Gena can be cut from three different long names, and they mean three different things. Regina is Latin for a queen. Genevieve is Germanic and argued about. Eugenia is Greek and means well-born. All three shed the same two syllables, and the spelling does not say which one a family had in mind.
How old is the name Gena?
Gena was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Gena alive today was born around 1967, making them about 58 years old. About 11,000 people named Gena are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Gena most popular?
Gena peaked in 1968, reaching #420 nationally. See the whole 1968 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
Origin, sound and short forms
The story of Gena
Latin words used directly as names were common in Catholic Europe, and Regina is among the plainest of them — it is also a title of the Virgin, which is how a common noun became a girl's name across Italy, Poland and Ireland. Eugenia and Genevieve reached English by their own routes, French for the second and Greek by way of Rome for the first. American naming then did what it does with any long name: cut it. Gena arrived from all three directions at once in the same decades, which is why it is more common than any single parent would explain.
Meaningscholars disagree
queen
If Gena comes from Regina the meaning is plain: regina is simply the Latin word for a queen, feminine of rex, and it needs no interpretation at all. Eugenia gives eu and genos, well-born, which is a class claim rather than a description. Genevieve's own origin is disputed, usually read as a Germanic compound whose second element may be a word for a woman. Three roads, three meanings, one short name — and the road matters more here than it does for most names, because the meanings are not close.
Pronouncing Gena
JEE-nuh
JEE-nuh, two syllables, stress at the front, the g soft. Some say GEE-nuh with a hard g, following Gena as a spelling of Gina, and both are in use — this is the single most common thing to have to correct about the name.
Nicknames for Gena
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
- 1880
- Most girls named
- 1967486 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #420reached in 1968
- Change vs 2019
- +33.3%8 in 2024, from 6
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.
Gena in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Regina in Italian — related form
- Geneviève in French — related form
- Eugenia in Greek — related form
Genas among us
people named Gena are estimated to be alive in the US today
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Gena sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- Three long names are available behind it, which gives a family a formal option in three different traditions.
- Four letters and two syllables, easy against any surname.
- The sound is entirely familiar even where the spelling is not.
- The g can be read hard or soft and the spelling does not decide, so the name is mispronounced regularly.
- Gina, Jena and Jenna are all close enough to be substituted in speech and in writing.
- Because the three possible parents mean quite different things, any meaning offered is a choice rather than an inheritance.
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Gena
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Genas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 11,000 people named Gena are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Gena in 2025?
- Gena is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Gena with classmates?
- Gena will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More G names
The most-given names starting with G, all years combined.
Grace#38 · Gloria#654 · Gladys#3211 · Geraldine#2438 · Gail#8362 · Gertrude#6546 · Georgia#99 · Gina#2076
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Gena? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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