Janina
Feminine · “Hebrew Yochanan”
Slavic languages build a woman's name from a man's by adding a suffix, and the suffix is a real piece of grammar rather than a decoration. Jan is John in Polish. Janina is Jan with -ina on the end, formed the same way Karolina comes from Karol and Marcelina from Marcel.
How old is the name Janina?
Janina first appears in US birth records in 1911 — 114 years ago. The typical Janina alive today was born around 1978, making them about 47 years old. About 2,400 people named Janina are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Janina most popular?
Janina peaked in 1916, reaching #1114 nationally. Today it ranks #8860, 7,746 places below that high. See the whole 1916 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Yochanan to Janina
The story of Janina
The 1916 peak places Janina exactly in the Polish immigration of 1900 to 1920, when more than a million Poles arrived and their American-born daughters were registered under names that had never appeared in the national data before. Names of that generation share a shape: they are formally complete, they carry a grammatical suffix rather than a fashionable one, and they fall away within two generations as families anglicized. Janina's American descendants were named Jane, Jean and Janet. What makes the Polish feminines unusual among immigrant names is that they cannot be shortened into English: Janina has no natural English clip, because Jan reads as a separate name and Nina as another one. The name either survives whole or it is replaced, and it was mostly replaced.
Meaning
Hebrew Yochanan, Yah is gracious
Janina is the Polish and Lithuanian feminine of Jan, which is John, from Hebrew Yochanan, Yah is gracious. The -ina suffix is a productive feminine ending in Polish, applied freely to men's names. It is not a diminutive: Janina is the full formal name, and the diminutives built on it are Janka, Jasia and Ninka. The American peak is 1916.
How the name formed
- Yochanan
- Johannes
- Jan
- Janina
Related forms: Janina · Janina · Jane · Giannina
Pronouncing Janina
yah-NEE-nah
Three syllables, stress on the second. Polish says the J as y; American English usually says jah-NEE-nah with a j. Both are in use in the United States.
Nicknames for Janina
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
- 1911
- Most girls named
- 198162 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1114reached in 1916
- Change vs 2023
- −38.9%11 in 2025, from 18
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.
Janina in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Janina in Polish — same name
- Janina in Lithuanian — same name
- Jane in English — related form
- Giannina in Italian — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California.
Janinas among us
people named Janina are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 146,115 born in 2025 was named Janina
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 Alethia test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Janina's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Alethia climbed just as high around 1900, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Alethia's path sketches the road Janina is walking now.
Janina 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
Janina beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Janina in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- It is a complete formal name with a real grammatical structure.
- Nina and Jana are both available as short forms.
- It is spelled the same in Polish, Lithuanian and English.
- The initial J is said two different ways depending on who is speaking.
- It reads as strongly Eastern European.
- Janine and Janina are separate names and are constantly confused.
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What they receive
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Janina
Feminine · #8860 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Janinas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 2,400 people named Janina are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Janina in 2025?
- Janina ranks #8860 among US girl names in 2025, with 11 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Janina?
- About 1 in every 146,115 US girls born in 2025 was named Janina — 11 in all.
- Will my child share the name Janina with classmates?
- Janina will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Janina
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 Janina? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Janina and another name?
See them side by side — full stats, history and a gentle verdict.
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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
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