Tawna
Feminine
Tawna is a color word with the y taken off and an a put on, which is the standard American way of turning a word into a woman's name — and it leaves the name hovering between two quite different sources.
How old is the name Tawna?
Tawna first appears in US birth records in 1948 — 77 years ago. The typical Tawna alive today was born around 1975, making them about 50 years old. About 800 people named Tawna are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Tawna most popular?
Tawna peaked in 1963, reaching #2015 nationally. See the whole 1963 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
Origin, sound and short forms
Our story of Tawna
Turning a word into a name is a small piece of engineering. The word has to stop being read as a word, which means changing something — and the most reliable change in English is to alter the ending, because that is where the eye looks to decide what kind of word it is dealing with. Drop the y from a color adjective and add an a, and the eye stops reading a description and starts reading a name, without the sound changing much at all. That trick built a long list of American women's names, and it has the advantage of leaving the association intact while removing the awkwardness: the color is still there for anybody who wants it, and the word is not.
Meaningnot established
Not established
Two possibilities. One is the color word, a very old borrowing from French about the tanning of leather. The other is a respelling of Tanya, which is Russian and unrelated. The spelling sits between them and the record does not choose.
Pronouncing Tawna
TAW-nuh
Two syllables, stress at the front. In much of American speech the first vowel is the same as in Tanya, which is part of why the two spellings blur.
Nicknames for Tawna
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
- 1948
- Most girls named
- 196334 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #2015reached in 1963
- Change vs 1999
- +20.0%6 in 2003, from 5
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.
Tawnas among us
people named Tawna 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
Tawna 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
- It is short, soft and easy for a child at any age.
- The spelling is unambiguous and survives being dictated.
- It is rare while sounding entirely familiar.
- Tawnya, Tonya and Tanya are all nearby and hers will be written as one of them.
- The color association is still legible, which some families want and others do not.
- No single source can be claimed, so the meaning is a choice.
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Tawna
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Tawnas 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 Tawna are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Tawna in 2025?
- Tawna is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Tawna with classmates?
- Tawna will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More T names
The most-given names starting with T, all years combined.
Teresa#908 · Theresa#1548 · Tiffany#878 · Tammy#3645 · Taylor#403 · Tina#2778 · Tracy#2153 · Thelma#4661
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Tawna? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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