Julianna
Feminine · “of the Julii”
Julianna is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 52,285 girls against 26 boys since 1880.
Julianna is the long form of a Roman family name that has been in continuous use for something like two thousand years, reshaped by Latin, then by Italian, Spanish, Polish and Hungarian, and finally by American parents who liked the extra n. Four syllables that step down gently at the end, with the stress landing on the third. It has been on American records since the earliest years such records were kept, and it is still being given to babies now.
How old is the name Julianna?
Julianna first appears in US birth records in 1900 — 125 years ago. The typical Julianna alive today was born around 2008, making them about 17 years old. About 51,000 people named Julianna are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Julianna most popular?
Julianna peaked in 2010, reaching #176 nationally. Today it ranks #398, 222 places below that high. See the whole 2010 chart.
Where it comes from
From Iulius to Julianna
The story of Julianna
The Julii were one of Rome's old patrician families, and from their name Latin built the adjective Iulianus, "of the Julii", with the feminine Iuliana. Early Christian martyrs carried Iuliana, which kept the name alive through the Middle Ages in Latin and then in nearly every European vernacular: Giuliana in Italy, Juliana in Spain and the Netherlands, Julienne in France, Julianna in Hungary and Poland. English speakers mostly used Juliana, and the doubled-n spelling arrived in American records alongside the single-n one, borrowed from the Central European form and reinforced by the familiar look of Anna. Both spellings have been in use here for well over a century.
Meaning
of the Julii — belonging to Julius
Julianna is a feminine form of the Latin Iulianus, itself formed from the old Roman family name Iulius. What Iulius meant before it was a family name is not settled: it has been linked both to the god Jupiter and to a Greek word for soft, downy hair. The step from Julius to Julianna, though, is clear.
How the name formed
- Iulius
- Iulianus
- Iuliana
- Juliana
- Julianna
Related forms: Juliana · Giuliana · Julianna · Julianna · Julienne · Yuliana
Pronouncing Julianna
joo-lee-AH-nuh
Also commonly said joo-lee-AN-uh, with the third syllable rhyming with "can". Both are accepted in the US, so expect to state your preference now and then.
Nicknames for Julianna
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
- 1900
- Most girls named
- 20011,777 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #176reached in 2010
- Change vs 2023
- −16.6%779 in 2025, from 934
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.
Julianna in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Juliana in Spanish — spelling variant
- Giuliana in Italian — same name
- Julianna in Hungarian — same name
- Julianna in Polish — same name
- Julienne in French — related form
- Yuliana in Russian — transliteration
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, New York.
Juliannas among us
people named Julianna are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 2,063 born in 2025 was named Julianna
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Julianna
- #398
- Julianna on the 2025 chart
- #158
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Julianna went to 779 girls in 2025, but Juliana is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 1,982, which makes it the 158th most-given girls’ name of the year — 240 places above the chart.
- Juliana1,203
- Julianna779
About 1 girl in 811 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 2,063 for Julianna 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 Justine test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Julianna's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Justine climbed just as high around 1987, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Justine's path sketches the road Julianna is walking now.
Julianna 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 Julianna is headed
Julianna 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.
Julianna beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Julianna in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Recognized in Spanish, Italian, Polish, Hungarian and Dutch in closely related forms, so it travels without needing translation.
- An unbroken written record stretching back to Roman Latin, with no gap where the name fell out of use.
- Several long-established short forms — Julie, Anna, Annie — each of which is a complete name on its own.
- Familiar to nearly every English speaker while common enough to be understood and rare enough to be uncrowded in a classroom.
- Juliana and Julianna are both in steady use, and Julianne exists too. You will be spelling it aloud fairly often, and forms will sometimes come back with one n.
- The pronunciation genuinely splits between -AH-nuh and -AN-uh, so people will guess wrong roughly half the time until corrected.
- It sits in a crowded family — Julia, Julie, Juliet, Juliana — and may get casually swapped with a cousin or classmate carrying one of those.
- The name has been easing back from its high point, which means fewer age-mates share it; that reads as distinctive rather than dated, since the name itself has never been out of circulation.
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What they receive
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Julianna
Feminine · #398 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Juliannas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 51,000 people named Julianna are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Julianna?
- Julianna is one of 2 recorded spellings. Juliana is the more common one — 1,203 births in 2025 against 779 for Julianna.
- How popular is the name Julianna in 2025?
- Julianna ranks #398 among US girl names in 2025, with 779 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Julianna?
- About 1 in every 2,063 US girls born in 2025 was named Julianna — 779 in all.
- Will my child share the name Julianna with classmates?
- Julianna will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Julianna
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Melany#398 · Murphy#397 · Bonnie#396 · Briar#400 · Lauren#401 · Regina#395 · Danna#394 · Logan#402
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Julianna? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Julianna and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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