Irena
The girl's name Irena has been in the national records since 1880, with 2,186 births to its name. In 2025 it ranked 5,238th. About 1,400 Irenas are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 31.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Irena
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 2,186
- Estimated living today
- 1,400
- Median age today
- 31
- Peak year
- 2024
- Best rank
- 4,207th
- Rank in 2025
- 5,238th
- First recorded
- 1880
How old the living Irenas are
born that year still alive today
Of the 2,186 babies given the name since 1880, about 1,400 are alive — 66 in every hundred. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1994 and half after.
An estimate, not a count. SSA births aged forward through SSA cohort life tables, which know nothing about who left the country or arrived in it — so for a name that mostly came to America rather than being born in it, this is a floor rather than a figure. Where you fall among living Americans.
Notable Irenas
- Irena Sendler (1910–2008)Polish resistance fighter and Holocaust rescuer
- Irena Szewińska (1946–2018)Polish sprinter and sports official
- Irena Veisaitė (1928–2020)Lithuanian academic
- Irena Degutienė (born 1949)Lithuanian politician
- Irena Kwiatkowska (1912–2011)Polish actress
- Irena Krzywicka (1899–1994)Polish feminist
- Irena Anders (1920–2010)Polish stage actress and singer
- Irena Szydłowska (1928–1983)Polish archer
People named Irena with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Irena is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Irena is most concentrated in California (5.4×), New York (5.0×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 2024
The most popular girls’ names the year Irena peaked:
Irena elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| France girls | Irena +1 spelling | 2,115 | 152nd |
| Poland girls | Irena | 1,370 birth registrations | 130th |
| Norway girls | Irena | 305 | 249th |
| England and Wales girls | Irena | 105 | 2,547th |
| Switzerland girls | Irena | 69 | 1,033rd |
| Belgium girls | Irena | 12 | 986th |
| Scotland girls | Irena | 3 | 798th |
Counts come from each country's own records and are not comparable with the US figures above, which cover different years and a different definition of a recorded name. Where a country writes the name several ways, the spellings are added together and the most common is shown. A row marked name registrations is counting something else: Portugal ranks each of a child's two given names separately, so a girl registered Maria Leonor is in both the Maria row and the Leonor row, and that figure is not a number of children.
Irena: births by region
| Region | Country | Spelling | Births | Share of the region | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| German girls | Switzerland | Irena | 51 | 0.004% | 758th |
| French girls | Switzerland | Irena | 16 | 0.004% | 509th |
| Italian girls | Switzerland | Irena | 2 | 0.003% | 104th |
Parts of a country counted above, not extra births. The share is what makes the regions comparable: they differ in size by a factor of three hundred.
Irena: rank by region
In 2002, Irena was given 5 times or more in 1 region of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flanders | Irena | 699 | 5 |
In 2025, Irena was given 2 times or more in 12 regions of Poland.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dolnośląskie | Irena | 123 | 8 |
| Kujawsko-Pomorskie | Irena | 143 | 3 |
| Lubelskie | Irena | 101 | 6 |
| Łódzkie | Irena | 104 | 8 |
| Małopolskie | Irena | 111 | 14 |
| Mazowieckie | Irena | 123 | 19 |
| Podkarpackie | Irena | 158 | 2 |
| Pomorskie | Irena | 110 | 9 |
| Śląskie | Irena | 161 | 6 |
| Świętokrzyskie | Irena | 114 | 2 |
| Warmińsko-Mazurskie | Irena | 131 | 2 |
| Wielkopolskie | Irena | 124 | 10 |
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children, Poland below 2 children – and published nothing after. So a region missing here is one where the name fell outside what was published, not one where it went unused. Places are shared where names tie, and the further down a list a place is, the more names can share it.
Irena by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin girls | 2017–2023 | 2 | 552nd |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Irena among the living
How many people each country's register counts under the name, rather than how many were given it in any one year. Each register was read on one date, and they are not the same date.
| Country | Spelling | First forename | Any forename |
|---|---|---|---|
| Finland girls | Irena | 62 | 141 |
A count of people on a register – Finland on 4 August 2026 – and not of births, so it cannot be compared with the figures above. Names with very few bearers are withheld, and a dash in the first-forename column means the register would not say rather than that nobody goes by it.
Where Irena lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 529 women called Irena were living in Spain on 1 January 2025, of every age, born in any year. Where they live is not spread evenly.
Women: the provinces where it is densest
| Province | Spelling | People | Per thousand | Place there |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alicante/Alacant | Irena | 64 | 0.062 | 1,152 |
| Tarragona | Irena | 19 | 0.043 | 1,433 |
| Santa Cruz de Tenerife | Irena | 23 | 0.041 | 1,786 |
| Murcia | Irena | 31 | 0.039 | 1,278 |
| Málaga | Irena | 29 | 0.032 | 1,557 |
| Valencia/València | Irena | 44 | 0.031 | 1,527 |
Listed in 25 of Spain's 52 provinces. In the other 27 it is either held by fewer than 5 people – the point below which the source withholds a name – or it fell past the 5,000 names the source will print for one province. Neither means nobody there is called it. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.
Related names
Irena against another name
Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.
Try it on yourself
Source: US Social Security Administration, national and state baby-name files, 1880–2025. Counts include only births registered with the SSA, and names with fewer than five births in a year are not published. The living estimate applies SSA cohort life tables to those births; it counts people born in the United States, so it misses anyone who arrived later and anyone who has left.