Yanna
Feminine · “God is gracious”
Yanna is a real Greek name that looks like an American coinage. Gianna is the clip of Ioanna, the feminine of John, and Yanna is how it is romanised when the writer follows the sound rather than the Italian spelling.
How old is the name Yanna?
Yanna first appears in US birth records in 1971 — 54 years ago. The typical Yanna alive today was born around 2007, making them about 18 years old. About 600 people named Yanna are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Yanna most popular?
Yanna peaked in 2009, reaching #4482 nationally. Today it ranks #6838, 2,356 places below that high. See the whole 2009 chart.
Where it comes from
From Yohanan to Yanna
The story of Yanna
Greek romanisation has never settled. The Greek letter gamma before a front vowel says a y sound, so the same name is written Gianna by anyone following the Italian convention and Yanna by anyone writing what they hear; Giannis and Yannis, Georgios and Yorgos have the same problem. Meanwhile Cuban and Caribbean Spanish naming has been producing Y-initial names in volume since the 1960s, and Yanna fits that family perfectly. American records hold both, and the name's best year on file is 2009, which is late enough to suggest the second is the larger part of it.
Meaningscholars disagree
God is gracious
Greek Yanna or Gianna is a short form of Ioanna, the feminine of Ioannes, from Hebrew Yohanan, God is gracious. Separately, the American Yanna may be built from the Y- opening of Caribbean and Cuban naming and the -anna ending, in which case it has no meaning. The spelling does not distinguish the two.
How the name formed
- Yohanan
- Ioanna
- Gianna
- Yanna
Related forms: Gianna · Ioanna · Yana
Pronouncing Yanna
YAH-nah
Two syllables with the stress on the first. Gianna in Italian is JAH-nah with a j; the Greek and the Y spelling both give a y glide instead.
Nicknames for Yanna
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
- 1971
- Most girls named
- 200933 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #4482reached in 2009
- Change vs 2024
- +23.1%16 in 2025, from 13
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.
Yanna in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Gianna in Greek — spelling variant
- Ioanna in Greek — related form
- Yana in Spanish — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: California.
Yannas among us
people named Yanna are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 100,454 born in 2025 was named Yanna
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Yanna
- #6838
- Yanna on the 2025 chart
- #869
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Yanna went to 16 girls in 2025, but Yana is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 91, which makes it the 869th most-given girls’ name of the year — 5,969 places above the chart.
- Yana75
- Yanna16
About 1 girl in 17,662 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 100,454 for Yanna 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 Sharmayne test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Yanna's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Sharmayne climbed just as high around 1952, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Sharmayne's path sketches the road Yanna is walking now.
Yanna 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
Yanna beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Yanna in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A settled meaning available through one of the most-used names in the world.
- Anna is a complete name inside it and needs no explaining.
- Five letters, two open syllables, and no spelling difficulty.
- Gianna and Yanna are the same Greek name and look completely different.
- The initial is a y in Greek and a j in Italian.
- Yana and Yanna both circulate and split the records.
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What they receive
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Yanna
Feminine · #6838 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Yannas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 600 people named Yanna are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Yanna?
- Yanna is one of 2 recorded spellings. Yana is the more common one — 75 births in 2025 against 16 for Yanna.
- How popular is the name Yanna in 2025?
- Yanna ranks #6838 among US girl names in 2025, with 16 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Yanna?
- About 1 in every 100,454 US girls born in 2025 was named Yanna — 16 in all.
- Will my child share the name Yanna with classmates?
- Yanna will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Yanna
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Malana#6838 · Jeannie#6838 · Maxie#6838 · Nicol#6838 · Chaney#6838 · Keana#6838 · Concetta#6838 · Pheobe#6838
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Yanna? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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