Herminia
Feminine · “whole”
Herminia looks like a relative of Hermione and is not. One is Germanic and one is Greek, they arrived in Europe from opposite directions, and the resemblance between them is an accident of what happens when very different languages are written in the same alphabet.
How old is the name Herminia?
Herminia first appears in US birth records in 1894 — 131 years ago. The typical Herminia alive today was born around 1944, making them about 81 years old. About 1,900 people named Herminia are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Herminia most popular?
Herminia peaked in 1929, reaching #726 nationally. See the whole 1929 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From ermin to Herminia
The story of Herminia
The ermin element is one of the oldest things in the Germanic name stock. Tacitus records a group of tribes called the Herminones, and later German sources name a great pillar, the Irminsul, that stood as a sacred object until Charlemagne had it cut down. Names built on the element spread across Europe with the Germanic peoples and naturalized thoroughly in Spain, where Hermenegildo was a Visigothic king and a saint, and where Herminia and Herminio have been ordinary names ever since. That is the road this name took to America: not from Greek myth, but from Spain and Portugal, and before that from the Goths.
Meaningscholars disagree
whole, universal
The Germanic ermin or irmin is generally read as whole, great or universal, though the sense is reconstructed rather than recorded. Hermione, by contrast, is built on the god Hermes and has nothing to do with it.
How the name formed
- ermin
- Herminia
Related forms: Herminia · Herminia · Erminia · Hermine
Pronouncing Herminia
er-MEE-nee-uh
Four syllables with the weight on the second. Spanish drops the h entirely, which English speakers often do not, and the name is regularly given a hard H it does not want.
Nicknames for Herminia
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
- 1894
- Most girls named
- 193079 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #726reached in 1929
- Change vs 2018
- −22.2%7 in 2024, from 9
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.
Herminia in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Herminia in Spanish — same name
- Herminia in Portuguese — same name
- Erminia in Italian — spelling variant
- Hermine in German — related form
Herminias among us
people named Herminia 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
Herminia 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
- It is a standing name in Spanish, Portuguese and Italian, so it travels across a large part of the world unchanged.
- It carries several short forms, each a full name somewhere.
- The element behind it is one of the oldest recorded in any Germanic language.
- English speakers will hear Hermione and assume a connection that does not exist.
- The h is silent in Spanish and not in English, so the name is said two ways depending on the room.
- Four syllables is long, and it will be shortened by others.
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Herminia
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Herminias are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,900 people named Herminia are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Herminia in 2025?
- Herminia is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Herminia with classmates?
- Herminia will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More H names
The most-given names starting with H, all years combined.
Helen#461 · Heather#1261 · Hannah#56 · Hazel#21 · Holly#416 · Hailey#104 · Haley#861 · Heidi#340
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Herminia? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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