Hosanna
Feminine · Hebrew roots · “save”
Hosanna began as a shout — two Hebrew words meaning roughly "save, please" — and it has been sung in churches for close to two thousand years, which means most people who hear it will recognize it before they can place it. In the mouth it falls into three easy beats with the stress in the middle, the same shape as Susanna and Johanna. Medieval England and France gave the name Osanna or Osanne to girls born on Palm Sunday, when the word is read aloud.
How old is the name Hosanna?
Hosanna first appears in US birth records in 1972 — 53 years ago. The typical Hosanna is a kid of about 10 — this name's wave is very recent. About 1,900 people named Hosanna are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Hosanna most popular?
Hosanna peaked in 2025, reaching #1478 nationally. Today it ranks #1478, exactly where it peaked. See the whole 2025 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Hoshi'a na (Hebrew) to Hosanna
The story of Hosanna
The word comes from Hebrew, appears in the Greek New Testament in the accounts of the entry into Jerusalem, and passed untranslated into Latin, then into every European liturgy — one of a small handful of words, like amen and alleluia, that churches chose not to convert into local speech. Because it stayed a word rather than becoming a name, it entered naming through the calendar: medieval records in England, France and Italy show girls called Osanna or Osanne, and the form is well attested in Italy in the late Middle Ages. English speakers restored the initial H from the biblical spelling. Its life as an American given name is recent and still gathering, driven largely by hymn and worship-music usage rather than by any single bearer.
Meaning
"save, please" — later a cry of praise
The Hebrew hoshi'a na of Psalm 118 is a plea for rescue. Carried into Greek as hosanna and then into Latin and the liturgy, it shifted from a request into an exclamation of joy, which is how it is used in hymns and in the Palm Sunday reading today. Both senses are correct; they simply belong to different centuries.
How the name formed
- Hoshi'a naHebrew
- HōsannaGreek
- Osanna / Osannemedieval Latin, English, French
- Hosanna
Related forms: Osanna · Osanne · Hosana · Hosana · Hosanna · Ōsanna
Pronouncing Hosanna
hoh-ZAN-uh
The h is sounded and the middle syllable takes the stress. A lighter first syllable — huh-ZAN-uh — is common in ordinary speech and nobody treats it as wrong.
Nicknames for Hosanna
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
- 1972
- Most girls named
- 2025145 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1478reached in 2025
- Change vs 2024
- +8.2%145 in 2025, from 134
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.
Hosanna in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Osanna in Italian — related form
- Osanne in French — related form
- Hosana in Portuguese — spelling variant
- Hosana in Spanish — spelling variant
- Hosanna in Latin — same name
- Ōsanna in Greek — transliteration
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Florida.
Hosannas among us
people named Hosanna are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 11,085 born in 2025 was named Hosanna
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Monae test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Hosanna's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Monae climbed just as high around 1996, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Monae's path sketches the road Hosanna is walking now.
Hosanna is climbing fast right now. Steep climbs tend to come with steep descents — the quicker a name arrives, the more firmly it belongs to its moment.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Hosanna is headed
Hosanna looks set to keep climbing gently, with roughly 27% more babies a year by 2030 if the current curve holds.
Medium 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.
Hosanna beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Hosanna in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Recognized on sight by anyone who has sat through an Easter or Palm Sunday service, so it rarely needs to be spelled out from scratch.
- A written record running from the Hebrew psalms through Greek and Latin to modern hymnals — very few given names are documented that far back.
- Comes with ready-made short forms, Anna above all, which is itself a complete name in dozens of languages.
- Keeps nearly the same shape in Italian, French, Portuguese and Spanish, so it travels without being rebuilt.
- It is still a liturgical word as well as a name. For many listeners it will declare a family's faith before anything else does, and that is worth deciding on deliberately rather than discovering later.
- Expect a lifetime of small corrections: Hosana, Hossanna and Osanna are all plausible guesses, and the doubled n plus single s trips people up.
- She will very likely be the only one in her class, which cuts both ways — no surname initial needed, but also no shelf of personalized pencils and the occasional pause while someone works out how to say it.
Nobody names a baby alone.
Put Hosanna to the vote.
Add it to a family vote or a couple’s swipe deck — the other person gets one card, a simple answer and room to say why. No app, no account for them.
Only the people you invite can see your list.
Already decided on Hosanna? Hide it among decoys and let them guess.
What they receive
Someone added a name to your list
Hosanna
Feminine · Hebrew roots · #1478 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Hosannas 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 Hosanna are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Hosanna in 2025?
- Hosanna ranks #1478 among US girl names in 2025, with 145 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Hosanna?
- About 1 in every 11,085 US girls born in 2025 was named Hosanna — 145 in all.
- Will my child share the name Hosanna with classmates?
- Hosanna will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Hosanna
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Wyatt#1478 · Nathalie#1478 · Cattaleya#1478 · Verity#1478 · Atlas#1478 · Rivky#1484 · Miah#1484 · Dove#1484
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Hosanna? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Hosanna and another name?
See them side by side — full stats, history and a gentle verdict.
Compare side by sideIn a hurry? Just pick a winner — one tap, no sign-up, and you see how everyone else voted.
Weighing a whole shortlist? Add the rest in the builder, or settle it with a bracket.
Cast your vote
Which one would you pick?
Your gut first, the numbers after — the split shows once you pick.
US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
No advertising trackers and no data sellinghow we handle your dataindependent and founder-run, about Name Battle