Roxanna
Feminine · “shining”
Roxanna is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 13,459 girls against 7 boys since 1880.
Roxanna is Persian light. The Old Persian word behind it means shining or dawning, and it belonged to a Bactrian woman who married Alexander of Macedon — which is how a Persian name ended up in Greek histories and from there in every European language.
How old is the name Roxanna?
Roxanna was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Roxanna alive today was born around 1977, making them about 48 years old. About 11,500 people named Roxanna are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Roxanna most popular?
Roxanna peaked in 1954, reaching #572 nationally. Today it ranks #2822, 2,250 places below that high. See the whole 1954 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From raoxsna to Roxanna
The story of Roxanna
Roxana was the daughter of a Bactrian nobleman, in what is now Afghanistan and Tajikistan, and Alexander married her during his eastern campaign; their son was born after his death and did not survive the wars that followed. Greek and Roman historians kept the name in circulation, and it reached English through them rather than through any continuous use. Later it was carried by a seventeenth-century French play and an eighteenth-century English novel, both of which kept it visible, and it settled into ordinary American use in the twentieth century.
Meaning
shining, bright; dawn
From Old Iranian raoxsna, 'bright, shining', related to the Avestan word for light and, at a great distance, to Latin lux. Greek writers rendered it Rhoxane and Latin as Roxana. The reading is well supported and not in dispute. Roxanna with the doubled n is an English and American spelling variant.
How the name formed
- raoxsna
- Rhoxane
- Roxana
- Roxanna
Related forms: Roshanak · Rhoxane · Roxana · Roxane
Pronouncing Roxanna
rok-SAN-uh
Three syllables with the stress in the middle. The doubled n does not change the sound. French says rok-SAN with two syllables and no final vowel.
Nicknames for Roxanna
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
- 1880
- Most girls named
- 1988316 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #572reached in 1954
- Change vs 2022
- −7.7%60 in 2025, from 65
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.
Roxanna in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Roshanak in Persian — related form
- Rhoxane in Greek — transliteration
- Roxana in Spanish — spelling variant
- Roxane in French — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Florida.
Roxannas among us
people named Roxanna are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 26,788 born in 2025 was named Roxanna
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Roxanna
- #2822
- Roxanna on the 2025 chart
- #823
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Roxanna went to 60 girls in 2025, but Roxana is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 137, which makes it the 823rd most-given girls’ name of the year — 1,999 places above the chart.
- Roxana77
- Roxanna60
About 1 girl in 11,732 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 26,788 for Roxanna 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 Rosamond test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Roxanna's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Rosamond climbed just as high around 1912, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Rosamond's path sketches the road Roxanna is walking now.
Roxanna 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 Roxanna is headed
Roxanna is easing off slowly — about 15% fewer babies a year by 2030 if the trend continues.
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.
Roxanna beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Roxanna in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A documented Persian origin with a clear meaning and a genuinely remarkable history behind it.
- Roxy and Anna are two ready short forms in quite different registers.
- Recognized across English, Spanish, French and Persian at once.
- Roxana, Roxanna, Roxane and Roxanne are four live spellings and none is standard.
- Roxy is the form most people will use, and it has a distinctly informal flavor.
- It carries a strong sense of a particular American generation, which reads as classic or dated depending on the ear.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
Someone added a name to your list
Roxanna
Feminine · #2822 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Roxannas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 11,500 people named Roxanna are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Roxanna?
- Roxanna is one of 2 recorded spellings. Roxana is the more common one — 77 births in 2025 against 60 for Roxanna.
- How popular is the name Roxanna in 2025?
- Roxanna ranks #2822 among US girl names in 2025, with 60 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Roxanna?
- About 1 in every 26,788 US girls born in 2025 was named Roxanna — 60 in all.
- Will my child share the name Roxanna with classmates?
- Roxanna will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Roxanna
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Lya#2822 · Haniya#2822 · Maybelle#2822 · Hayat#2822 · Seven#2822 · Livie#2822 · Kensington#2822 · Kaziah#2822
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Roxanna? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Roxanna and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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