Jina
Feminine · “name”
In Swahili, jina is the word for name. A child called Jina in East Africa is carrying the noun itself, which is a rare thing for a name to do — most are words for something else, and this one is a word for what it is.
How old is the name Jina?
Jina first appears in US birth records in 1948 — 77 years ago. The typical Jina alive today was born around 1979, making them about 46 years old. About 1,900 people named Jina are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Jina most popular?
Jina peaked in 1967, reaching #1524 nationally. Today it ranks #10917, 9,393 places below that high. See the whole 1967 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Luigina to Jina
The story of Jina
Italian cuts the ends off long names and keeps them. Luigina, Regina, Giorgina and Angelina all end in -gina, and the ending broke off in the nineteenth century and became a name of its own — a piece of a word promoted to the whole of one. When Gina reached American records the spelling caused trouble, because English g is soft before i but hard before a and o, and readers who met the name in print had no reason to know which was meant. Writing it with a j settles it in one letter. The Swahili name arrived separately and needs no adjustment at all: it is already spelled the way it sounds, in a language that spells everything the way it sounds.
Meaningscholars disagree
name, in Swahili — or, in the other reading, a shortening of Regina and Luigina
Two unrelated sources. Swahili jina, from an old Bantu root, is the ordinary word for a name. Separately, Jina is an American respelling of Italian Gina, which is not a name in its own right in Italian but the tail end of Luigina, Regina and Giorgina, cut loose and given alone.
How the name formed
- Luigina
- Gina
- Jina
Related forms: Jina · Gina · Jina
Pronouncing Jina
JEE-nah
Two syllables, stress on the first, with a long ee. JY-nuh, with a long i, is occasionally used and follows English spelling rules rather than Italian or Swahili ones.
Nicknames for Jina
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
- 1948
- Most girls named
- 197056 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1524reached in 1967
- Change vs 2023
- −20.0%8 in 2025, from 10
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.
Jina in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Jina in Swahili — same name
- Gina in Italian — spelling variant
- Jina in Korean — transliteration
Jinas among us
people named Jina are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 200,908 born in 2025 was named Jina
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 Lanna test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Jina's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Lanna climbed just as high around 1947, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Lanna's path sketches the road Jina is walking now.
Jina 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
Jina beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Jina in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Four letters, two syllables, and the spelling removes the ambiguity that Gina carries.
- It works unaltered in Swahili, Italian, Korean and English.
- It is short without being a nickname for anything in particular.
- Gina is much commoner in America and this spelling will be corrected toward it.
- It is close enough to Gina, Jenna and Dina to be misheard as any of them.
- Two of its possible sources have nothing to do with each other, so the meaning depends on the family.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Jina
Feminine · #10917 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Jinas 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 Jina are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Jina in 2025?
- Jina ranks #10917 among US girl names in 2025, with 8 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Jina?
- About 1 in every 200,908 US girls born in 2025 was named Jina — 8 in all.
- Will my child share the name Jina with classmates?
- Jina will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Jina
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Edythe#10917 · Tessie#10917 · Drusilla#10917 · Eugenie#10917 · Ivah#10917 · Karri#10917 · Claribel#10917 · Myrtle#10917
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Jina? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Jina and another name?
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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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