Hanah
Feminine · “Hebrew channah”
Hannah's song in 1 Samuel is the model for the Magnificat. Mary's speech in Luke follows it closely: the humbled raised up, the powerful brought down, the hungry filled and the rich sent away. One woman's prayer after a birth became the template for another's a thousand years later.
How old is the name Hanah?
Hanah first appears in US birth records in 1977 — 48 years ago. The typical Hanah alive today was born around 2001, making them about 24 years old. About 2,000 people named Hanah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Hanah most popular?
Hanah peaked in 1999, reaching #1560 nationally. Today it ranks #8860, 7,300 places below that high. See the whole 1999 chart.
Where it comes from
From channah to Hanah
The story of Hanah
The parallel is close enough that it is generally taken as deliberate. Hannah, childless and mocked, prays at Shiloh, bears Samuel, and delivers a poem in which the bows of the mighty are broken, the hungry are fed, the barren bears seven and the poor are lifted from the dunghill. Mary, in Luke 1, says that God has scattered the proud, put down the mighty from their seats, exalted the humble, filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty. The structure, the imagery and the reversal are the same. Luke was writing in Greek and drawing on the Greek Old Testament, where Hannah's song was available to him. Both are songs of reversal placed in the mouth of a woman at a birth, and both are among the most quoted passages in their respective scriptures.
Meaning
Hebrew channah, favor or grace
From Hebrew channah, from a root meaning favor, grace or supplication. Hannah is the mother of the prophet Samuel and her prayer in 1 Samuel 2 is one of the earliest poetic passages in the Hebrew Bible. Hanah is a respelling with a single n, which is standard in Arabic transliteration and a variant in English. It peaks in the American data in 1999.
How the name formed
- channah
- Hannah
- Hanah
Related forms: Hannah · Hana · Chana
Pronouncing Hanah
HAN-ah
Two syllables, stress on the first, short a. The terminal h is silent and marks the final vowel as full. The Hebrew Chana begins with a guttural English does not have.
Nicknames for Hanah
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
- 1977
- Most girls named
- 2001118 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1560reached in 1999
- Change vs 2024
- −8.3%11 in 2025, from 12
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.
Hanah in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Hannah in English — spelling variant
- Hana in Arabic — related form
- Chana in Hebrew — transliteration
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, California.
Hanahs among us
people named Hanah are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 146,115 born in 2025 was named Hanah
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Hanah
- #8860
- Hanah on the 2025 chart
- #43
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Hanah went to 11 girls in 2025, but Hannah, Hanna and Hana are the same name said out loud. Together the 5 spellings went to 5,016, which makes it the 43rd most-given girls’ name of the year — 8,817 places above the chart.
and 1 rarer spelling.
About 1 girl in 320 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 146,115 for Hanah 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 Velinda test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Hanah's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Velinda climbed just as high around 1954, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Velinda's path sketches the road Hanah is walking now.
Hanah 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
Hanah beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Hanah in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- The Hebrew meaning is settled and the biblical figure is major.
- It is short and easy to spell.
- Hana is available as a shorter variant.
- Hannah is overwhelmingly more common and is a palindrome, which this is not.
- Hana, Hanna and Hannah all circulate.
- The single n changes the vowel prediction, though not the pronunciation.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Hanah
Feminine · #8860 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Hanahs are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 2,000 people named Hanah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Hanah?
- Hanah is one of 4 recorded spellings. Hannah is the more common one — 3,973 births in 2025 against 11 for Hanah.
- How popular is the name Hanah in 2025?
- Hanah ranks #8860 among US girl names in 2025, with 11 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Hanah?
- About 1 in every 146,115 US girls born in 2025 was named Hanah — 11 in all.
- Will my child share the name Hanah with classmates?
- Hanah will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Hanah
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 Hanah? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Hanah and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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