Tana
Feminine
Tana is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 9,274 girls against 6 boys since 1880.
Tana is the end of two longer names and the name of a lake. Tatiana and Montana both shed their fronts easily, and both were in American use when this name appears. Lake Tana in the Ethiopian highlands is the source of the Blue Nile, which supplies most of the water that reaches Egypt — a considerable thing for four letters to name.
How old is the name Tana?
Tana first appears in US birth records in 1924 — 101 years ago. The typical Tana alive today was born around 1970, making them about 55 years old. About 8,300 people named Tana are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Tana most popular?
Tana peaked in 1962, reaching #650 nationally. Today it ranks #14942, 14,292 places below that high. See the whole 1962 chart.
Where it comes from
Origin, sound and short forms
The story of Tana
English and Spanish both shorten long names from the back as readily as from the front — Tania from Tatiana, Tina from Cristina, Nina from Antonina — and the clippings then become independent, which is what happened here. Meanwhile Montana entered American naming as a state name and produced its own short form. Lake Tana runs on an entirely separate track: it has been on European maps since the seventeenth century as the source of one of the world's great rivers, and it turns up in American records as a name for exactly that reason.
Meaningnot established
Not established
No single origin can be established. Tatiana descends from a Roman family name and Montana from the Latin for mountainous, so a clipping of either inherits at one remove and unreliably. Lake Tana's own name comes from the Ethiopian highlands and its meaning is not securely recovered. There is also a Spanish and Slavic Tana used independently as a short form. The honest position is that the name arrives from several directions and the spelling records none of them.
Pronouncing Tana
TAH-nuh
TAH-nuh, two syllables, stress at the front, the first vowel open. Some say TAN-uh with a short a, following the English word tan, and both readings are heard. The spelling settles neither, so the household does.
Nicknames for Tana
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
- 1924
- Most girls named
- 1962241 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #650reached in 1962
- Change vs 2023
- −37.5%5 in 2025, 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.
Tana in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Tanya in Russian — related form
- Tania in Spanish — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas.
Tanas among us
people named Tana are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 321,453 born in 2025 was named Tana
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Luana test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Tana's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Luana climbed just as high around 1947, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Luana's path sketches the road Tana is walking now.
Tana 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
Tana beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Tana in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Four letters and two syllables, with nothing silent and nothing doubled.
- Tatiana and Montana are both available as longer formal versions.
- It works for either child, though it goes almost entirely to girls in practice.
- The first vowel can be read two ways and neither is standard, so the name is said wrong regularly.
- Tanya, Tania and Dana are all close enough to be substituted in speech and in writing.
- There is no settled origin, so any story a family tells is chosen rather than found.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Tana
Feminine · #14942 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Tanas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 8,300 people named Tana are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Tana in 2025?
- Tana ranks #14942 among US girl names in 2025, with 5 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Tana?
- About 1 in every 321,453 US girls born in 2025 was named Tana — 5 in all.
- Will my child share the name Tana with classmates?
- Tana will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Tana
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Hester#14942 · Lyda#14942 · Zula#14942 · Zona#14942 · Ula#14942 · Belva#14942 · Lucetta#14942 · Leala#14942
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Tana? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Tana and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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