Hanna
Feminine · “grace”
Hanna is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 42,005 girls against 132 boys since 1880.
Hanna is the spelling that most of Europe uses for one of the oldest names still in circulation — a Hebrew name for grace that has been spoken continuously for something like three thousand years. It is short, it is stressed on the first syllable, and it sounds the same in a German classroom, a Finnish one and an American one. Familiar without being everywhere: recognized instantly, met rarely.
How old is the name Hanna?
Hanna was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Hanna alive today was born around 2001, making them about 24 years old. About 40,000 people named Hanna are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Hanna most popular?
Hanna peaked in 1998, reaching #165 nationally. Today it ranks #511, 346 places below that high. See the whole 1998 chart.
Hanna appears on these lists:
- Names far more common than their rank admits
- Scandinavian names, cool by design
- Eastern European names in American use
- all guides
Works in Scandinavian families too:
Where it comes from
From Ḥannāh to Hanna
The story of Hanna
The name belongs to the mother of Samuel in the Hebrew Bible, whose story of long-awaited childbirth is told in the first book of Samuel. The Greek translators of the Hebrew scriptures wrote it without its initial breath as Anna, and that shorter form spread across the Roman and then the Christian world, giving Anne, Ana and Annie. English Bibles restored the H from the Hebrew as Hannah, while German, Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, Hungarian and Polish settled on Hanna — the single-N, no-final-H spelling that is standard across the continent, and that also serves there as a short form of Johanna. Separately, Arabic-speaking Christian families use Ḥannā as a men's name, coming from Syriac and equivalent to John rather than to Hannah.
Meaning
grace, favor
From Hebrew ḥannāh, built on a root meaning to show favor or be gracious.
How the name formed
- Ḥannāh
- Anna
- Hannah
- Hanna
Related forms: Hannah · חַנָּה (Chana) · Hanna · Anna · Anne · Hania
Pronouncing Hanna
HAN-uh
Two syllables, stress on the first, identical in sound to Hannah in American English. In German and the Nordic languages the first vowel is broader and the ending crisper: HAH-na.
Nicknames for Hanna
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
- 1880
- Most girls named
- 19981,898 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #165reached in 1998
- Change vs 2022
- +1.9%580 in 2025, from 569
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.
Hanna in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Hannah in English — spelling variant
- חַנָּה (Chana) in Hebrew — transliteration
- Hanna in German — same name
- Anna in Greek and Latin — related form
- Anne in French — related form
- Hania in Polish — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, New York.
Hannas among us
people named Hanna are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 2,771 born in 2025 was named Hanna
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Hanna
- #511
- Hanna on the 2025 chart
- #43
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Hanna went to 580 girls in 2025, but Hannah 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 — 468 places above the chart.
and 2 rarer spellings.
About 1 girl in 320 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 2,771 for Hanna 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 Sonia test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Hanna's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Sonia climbed just as high around 1976, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Sonia's path sketches the road Hanna is walking now.
Hanna 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 Hanna is headed
Hanna should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
High 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.
Hanna beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Hanna in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Sounds exactly like Hannah, so no one ever has to ask how to say it.
- Two syllables spelled the way they sound — easy for a child to write early.
- The standard spelling across German, Nordic, Finnish, Hungarian and Polish usage, so it travels without translation.
- A documented record stretching back to the Hebrew Bible, and still turning up in kindergartens.
- The H-less ending will be corrected for life. Hannah is the far more common American spelling, so expect forms, teachers and autocorrect to add the final H, and expect to spell it aloud often.
- It sits inside a crowded sound-alike family — Hannah, Hana, Anna, Ana, Anne. Recognition is instant; precision takes a beat.
- Hanna is also a men's name among Arabic-speaking Christian families, and a familiar English and Irish surname. Neither causes real confusion in US usage, but both are worth knowing about.
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What they receive
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Hanna
Feminine · #511 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Hannas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 40,000 people named Hanna are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Hanna?
- Hanna is one of 3 recorded spellings. Hannah is the more common one — 3,973 births in 2025 against 580 for Hanna.
- How popular is the name Hanna in 2025?
- Hanna ranks #511 among US girl names in 2025, with 580 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Hanna?
- About 1 in every 2,771 US girls born in 2025 was named Hanna — 580 in all.
- Will my child share the name Hanna with classmates?
- Hanna will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Hanna
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Remington#511 · Alisson#511 · Estella#509 · Scarlet#509 · Faye#514 · Louise#514 · Beatrice#508 · Analeia#514
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Hanna? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Hanna and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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