Manya
Feminine · “Hebrew Miriam”
Marie Curie was called Manya as a child. She was born Maria Sklodowska in Warsaw under Russian rule, took the French form of her name in Paris, and named the first element she discovered polonium, after a country that did not exist on any map at the time.
How old is the name Manya?
Manya first appears in US birth records in 1917 — 108 years ago. The typical Manya alive today was born around 2003, making them about 22 years old. About 1,000 people named Manya are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Manya most popular?
Manya peaked in 1955, reaching #1940 nationally. Today it ranks #8860, 6,920 places below that high. See the whole 1955 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Miriam to Manya
The story of Manya
Poland had been partitioned out of existence in 1795 and did not reappear until 1918. Maria Sklodowska grew up in Warsaw under Russian administration, attended an illegal underground university because women were barred from the official one, and worked as a governess to fund her sister's studies in Paris before following her. She and Pierre Curie isolated two new elements from pitchblende in 1898, and she named the first polonium, after a country that existed only as a language and a memory. The second they called radium. She won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1903 and in Chemistry in 1911, the first person to win in two sciences, and died in 1934 of a blood disease almost certainly caused by her own work. Her notebooks are still radioactive and are kept in lead-lined boxes.
Meaning
Hebrew Miriam, meaning unknown
Manya is a Russian and Polish diminutive of Maria, from Hebrew Miriam, whose meaning has never been established. Slavic diminutive systems are elaborate and produce several forms from one name: Maria gives Manya, Masha, Marusya, Manechka and others, each with a different degree of familiarity. It peaks in the American data in 1955.
How the name formed
- Miriam
- Maria
- Manya
Related forms: Manya · Mania
Pronouncing Manya
MAHN-yah
Two syllables, stress on the first. The n is palatalised in Russian and Polish, closer to a ny blend than to a plain n followed by a y. English speakers usually manage it without difficulty.
Nicknames for Manya
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
- 1917
- Most girls named
- 201241 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1940reached in 1955
- Change vs 2024
- −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.
Manya in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Manya in Russian — same name
- Mania in Polish — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, New York.
Manyas among us
people named Manya are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 146,115 born in 2025 was named Manya
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Manya
- #8860
- Manya on the 2025 chart
- #926
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Manya went to 11 girls in 2025, but Maanya and Maniyah are the same name said out loud. Together the 3 spellings went to 34, which makes it the 926th most-given girls’ name of the year — 7,934 places above the chart.
- Maanya12
- Maniyah11
- Manya11
About 1 girl in 47,273 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 146,115 for Manya 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 Despina test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Manya's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Despina climbed just as high around 1931, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Despina's path sketches the road Manya is walking now.
Manya 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
Manya beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Manya in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- It is short and easy to spell.
- Maria is available as a full formal version.
- It belongs to a rich and living diminutive tradition.
- It is a homophone of an English word about obsession.
- The meaning of the underlying name is genuinely unknown.
- It reads as a nickname to most Americans.
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What they receive
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Manya
Feminine · #8860 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Manyas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,000 people named Manya are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Manya?
- Manya is one of 3 recorded spellings. Maanya is the more common one — 12 births in 2025 against 11 for Manya.
- How popular is the name Manya in 2025?
- Manya ranks #8860 among US girl names in 2025, with 11 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Manya?
- About 1 in every 146,115 US girls born in 2025 was named Manya — 11 in all.
- Will my child share the name Manya with classmates?
- Manya will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Manya
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 Manya? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Manya 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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