Rona
Feminine · “joy”
Rona is an island in the Hebrides — two of them, in fact, North Rona and South Rona, both small and one of them among the remotest inhabited places Britain ever had. It is also a modern Hebrew name meaning joy or song, and a short form of Veronica. Three unrelated sources, one four-letter name.
How old is the name Rona?
Rona first appears in US birth records in 1896 — 129 years ago. The typical Rona alive today was born around 1960, making them about 65 years old. About 4,200 people named Rona are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Rona most popular?
Rona peaked in 1942, reaching #773 nationally. See the whole 1942 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
Origin, sound and short forms
The story of Rona
North Rona is forty miles from the nearest land and was inhabited on and off for a thousand years by a handful of people at a time; the last permanent residents left in the nineteenth century after a plague of rats. It is now a nature reserve with the largest grey seal colony in the country. The Hebrew Rona is a separate matter entirely, part of the deliberate turn to ordinary vocabulary in modern Hebrew naming. American use draws on both, and on Veronica, in proportions the record does not reveal.
Meaningscholars disagree
joy; song
Hebrew ron means a glad shout or a song, and Rona and Ronit are modern Israeli names built on it — that reading is clean. The Hebridean islands take their name from Norse, generally read as rough island or seal island, and the two proposals compete. Veronica is a third road, itself of disputed origin. Which applies is a family fact rather than a linguistic one, and the record does not distinguish them.
Pronouncing Rona
ROH-nuh
ROH-nuh, two syllables, stress at the front, the first vowel long. Hebrew says it much the same way with a fuller final vowel. There is no competing reading, which is unusual for a name with three possible sources.
Nicknames for Rona
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
- 1896
- Most girls named
- 1967147 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #773reached in 1942
- Change vs 2022
- −12.5%7 in 2024, from 8
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.
Rona in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- רוֹנָה in Hebrew — transliteration
- Ronit in Hebrew — related form
- Rònaigh in Scottish Gaelic — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: New York, California.
Ronas among us
people named Rona are estimated to be alive in the US today
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Rona sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- Four letters and two syllables, said correctly by everyone on first sight.
- Three quite different histories are available behind it, which gives a family a real choice.
- Veronica is available as a longer formal version if one is wanted.
- Rhona is an equally common spelling, so the h gets asked about.
- The three possible origins mean quite different things, so any meaning offered is chosen.
- It is closely tied to the middle of the last century in America and dates a person fairly precisely.
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Rona
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Ronas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 4,200 people named Rona are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Rona in 2025?
- Rona is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Rona with classmates?
- Rona will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More R names
The most-given names starting with R, all years combined.
Ruth#173 · Rebecca#349 · Rachel#250 · Rose#114 · Ruby#64 · Robin#704 · Rita#1285 · Rhonda#6116
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Rona? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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