Leina
Feminine · “leaping place”
Leina is a Hawaiian word for a leaping place, and it names something specific — the cliffs where souls were said to depart the islands.
How old is the name Leina?
Leina first appears in US birth records in 1970 — 55 years ago. The typical Leina alive today was born around 2011, making them about 14 years old. About 800 people named Leina are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Leina most popular?
Leina peaked in 2020, reaching #3778 nationally. Today it ranks #4352, 574 places below that high. See the whole 2020 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
Origin, sound and short forms
Our story of Leina
Ours, offered as ours. Each Hawaiian island had a leina a ka uhane — a soul's leaping place, usually a westward cliff — where the dead were believed to depart, and the sites are still identified. That is a piece of geography with a metaphysical job, which is not something many landscapes have. Whether an American Leina draws on it or on the Slavic Lena is unrecorded, and the Hawaiian sense is by far the more striking.
Meaningscholars disagree
leaping place
Hawaiian leina names a place of leaping, and leina a ka uhane is the point at the western end of an island where souls were held to leap into the next world. A separate Germanic Leina and a Slavic Lena also exist and are unrelated.
Pronouncing Leina
LAY-nah
Two syllables, first stressed; every vowel is sounded in Hawaiian, giving lay-EE-nah.
Nicknames for Leina
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
- 1970
- Most girls named
- 202038 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #3778reached in 2020
- Change vs 2024
- +10.3%32 in 2025, from 29
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.
Leina in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Leina in Hawaiian — same name
- Lena in Russian — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Florida, Texas.
Leinas among us
people named Leina are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 50,227 born in 2025 was named Leina
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Leina
- #4352
- Leina on the 2025 chart
- #878
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Leina went to 32 girls in 2025, but Leyna is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 82, which makes it the 878th most-given girls’ name of the year — 3,474 places above the chart.
- Leyna50
- Leina32
About 1 girl in 19,601 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 50,227 for Leina 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 Janny test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Leina's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Janny climbed just as high around 1955, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Janny's path sketches the road Leina is walking now.
Leina 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 Leina is headed
Leina should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
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.
Leina beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Leina in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A settled Hawaiian meaning with a genuinely striking sense behind it.
- Lena is a complete short form with its own long European history.
- Five letters and two syllables, quick to write.
- Hawaiian sounds every vowel, so the name has three syllables there and two in English.
- It is a Hawaiian word, and Hawaiian families have views about its use by outsiders.
- Leina, Lena and Layna are all close and get confused.
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What they receive
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Leina
Feminine · #4352 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Leinas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 800 people named Leina are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Leina?
- Leina is one of 2 recorded spellings. Leyna is the more common one — 50 births in 2025 against 32 for Leina.
- How popular is the name Leina in 2025?
- Leina ranks #4352 among US girl names in 2025, with 32 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Leina?
- About 1 in every 50,227 US girls born in 2025 was named Leina — 32 in all.
- Will my child share the name Leina with classmates?
- Leina will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Leina
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Sigrid#4352 · Adel#4352 · Lovella#4352 · Kaysha#4352 · Arissa#4352 · Joseline#4352 · Yajaira#4352 · Elma#4352
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Leina? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Leina 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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