Kana
Feminine · “Japanese kana”
Kana is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 872 girls against 18 boys since 1880.
The Japanese syllabaries were largely developed by women. Court women in the Heian period were not taught Chinese, so they wrote in a cursive phonetic script called onnade, women's hand, and used it to produce The Tale of Genji and The Pillow Book. The script now called hiragana is what they were writing in, and it is what the word kana names.
How old is the name Kana?
Kana first appears in US birth records in 1956 — 69 years ago. The typical Kana alive today was born around 2001, making them about 24 years old. About 900 people named Kana are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Kana most popular?
Kana peaked in 1995, reaching #4217 nationally. Today it ranks #8362, 4,145 places below that high. See the whole 1995 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
Origin, sound and short forms
The story of Kana
Japanese had no writing before Chinese characters arrived, and the characters fit the language badly, since Chinese is uninflected and Japanese is heavily inflected. The solution was to use some characters for meaning and others purely for sound, and by the ninth century the sound characters had been simplified into two cursive syllabaries. Court men wrote in Chinese, which was the language of scholarship and government; court women, excluded from that education, wrote in the phonetic script, and produced the works that are now regarded as the foundation of Japanese literature. Murasaki Shikibu's Tale of Genji, written around the year 1000, is often called the first novel in any language. Sei Shonagon's Pillow Book is a collection of lists, observations and complaints from the same court. Both were written in a script their authors were given because they were denied another one.
Meaningscholars disagree
Japanese kana, the phonetic syllabaries
Kana is the collective name for the Japanese phonetic scripts, hiragana and katakana, from a word meaning borrowed or provisional names, as against the true names of Chinese characters. As a personal name Kana is written with any of several characters and the meaning depends on which; readings include a character for a flower and one for beauty. It peaks in the American data in 1995.
Pronouncing Kana
KAH-nah
Two syllables, both short and even. Japanese uses pitch rather than stress, so the English habit of stressing the first syllable is an addition. Americans often say KAY-nah, giving the first vowel the English long value.
Nicknames for Kana
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
- 1956
- Most girls named
- 200627 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #4217reached in 1995
- Change vs 2024
- −36.8%12 in 2025, from 19
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.
Kana in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Kana in Japanese — transliteration
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, New York.
Kanas among us
people named Kana are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 133,939 born in 2025 was named Kana
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Kana
- #8362
- Kana on the 2025 chart
- #917
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Kana went to 12 girls in 2025, but Cana and Kanna are the same name said out loud. Together the 3 spellings went to 43, which makes it the 917th most-given girls’ name of the year — 7,445 places above the chart.
- Cana21
- Kana12
- Kanna10
About 1 girl in 37,378 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 133,939 for Kana 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 Corazon test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Kana's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Corazon climbed just as high around 1933, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Corazon's path sketches the road Kana is walking now.
Kana 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
Kana beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Kana in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Four letters, easy to write and to say.
- The word behind it names one of the great achievements of Japanese literacy.
- It works in Japanese and American settings alike.
- The meaning depends on characters the romanised form does not show.
- English speakers often use the wrong first vowel.
- Kanna and Khana are near neighbors from other traditions.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Kana
Feminine · #8362 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Kanas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 900 people named Kana are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Kana?
- Kana is one of 3 recorded spellings. Cana is the more common one — 21 births in 2025 against 12 for Kana.
- How popular is the name Kana in 2025?
- Kana ranks #8362 among US girl names in 2025, with 12 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Kana?
- About 1 in every 133,939 US girls born in 2025 was named Kana — 12 in all.
- Will my child share the name Kana with classmates?
- Kana will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Kana
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Lona#8362 · Peggy#8362 · Leda#8362 · Margarette#8362 · Rella#8362 · Evalena#8362 · Vashti#8362 · Nona#8362
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Kana? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Kana and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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