Anna

512,954 people in America carry this name — ranked #82 of 923.

Carried mostly by the Greatest Generation.

Say it A nuh

2 syllables · the capitals are the stressed part

Phonetic transcription

AE1 N AH0 — ARPAbet, as published in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. The digit on a vowel marks its stress.

  • People counted 512,954 2020 Census
  • Rank #82 Very common
  • Per 100,000 169.8 about 1 in 646 people
  • As a surname 1,311 ranked #20,463 the other way round

The meaning and origin of Anna

Hebrew in origin, reading literally as “grace”.

Origins are a matter of scholarly argument rather than record, and a name can be traced more than one way. We state one reading and say where it came from.

How often Anna has been given

903,035 babies were given this name since 1880. The busiest year was 1918, with 15,697 of them.

80 90 00 10 20s 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 00 10 20

Most people carrying it were born in the 1920s. It has been given less often of late.

Counted from Social Security card applications, so it covers births registered in the United States and leaves out names given to fewer than five babies in a year.

Middle names for Anna

Two syllables sit with almost anything — the join matters more than the length.

Better avoided

  • Anna Ashley — runs together
  • Anna Amanda — runs together
  • Anna Amy — runs together

Chosen by sound from the pronouncing dictionary, then ordered by how often the name is given. None of it is a rule — the ear decides.

A name from before the war

The year most children were called Anna was 1918. Names of that age tend to come back once their owners are grandparents.

Boys or girls: who is called Anna?

0.1% men
512,297 women

As recorded on census returns, not as anyone thinks the name ought to be used.

Names built the same way as Anna

Ends on the same sound

Same rhythm — 2 syllables, stress on the first

Matched on phonemes, not spelling, so the lists follow the ear rather than the page.

Who answers to it now

  • White alone (non-Hispanic) — 74.8%
  • Black or African American alone (non-Hispanic) — 3.5%
  • Hispanic or Latino origin — 13.4%
  • Two or more races — 2.8%
  • Asian and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone — 5.0%
  • American Indian and Alaska Native alone — 0.5%

Categories are how people answered the census — a fact about the bearers, not a property of the name. Conclusions are ours, not the Census Bureau’s.

How Anna is spelled

Anna is how 50% of them spell it — 1,027,696 people answer to the sound.

Each spelling is its own census entry — the counts never overlap, so the shares are of the group, not of the country.

Names about as common

The nearest entries above and below by number of people.

Where the name Anna is most common in the US

In Alabama the name is given 1.8 times as often as it is across the country.

  • Alabama ×1.8
  • Vermont ×1.7
  • Alaska ×1.7
  • Mississippi ×1.7
  • Minnesota ×1.6

Measured against the state's own share of births since 1960, so a small state can lead a big one. Counted from Social Security card applications.

Try it Adult Height

Open Adult Height on its own page

Where this page gets its numbers

  • Counts, ranks and shares: U.S. Census Bureau, 2020 Census tabulations of first and last names occurring 100 or more times. Percentages, bands and groupings are our own arithmetic — the conclusions are ours, not the Bureau’s.
  • Pronunciation, syllables and rhyme groups: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, Carnegie Mellon University. The plain-English respelling is ours.
  • Origins and the forms a name takes in other languages: Charlotte Yonge, History of Christian Names, 1884 — a public-domain work. Scholarship has moved on since, so read it as one reading of a name, not the last word.

Below a hundred people we publish no figure at all — the same threshold the Census Bureau applies to us. What each source covers
Other names of Hebrew origin