Nana
Nana reached its high-water mark in 2000 at number 2,974, and has been recorded 3,396 times in all. It is given to both boys and girls. In 2025 it ranked 6,838th. About 2,500 Nanas are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 26.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Nana boys named Nana
Girls and boys called Nana
years more girls than boys years more boys than girls
Both, throughout, without either side ever taking it over: 2,530 girls and 866 boys in all, and in 2025 the split was 16 to 16.
The girls’ share of each year’s babies of the name, in the 54 years in which at least 25 babies got it. The line touches the middle more often than there are crossings marked: a year or two on the other side is not a name changing hands, and only a move that holds for 5 counted years and reaches 60/40 is recorded as one. All 581 names that changed sex.
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 3,396
- Estimated living today
- 2,500
- Median age today
- 26
- Peak year
- 2000
- Best rank
- 2,974th
- Rank in 2025
- 6,838th
- First recorded
- 1881
- Girls / boys
- 2,530 / 866
How old the living Nanas are
born that year still alive today
Of the 3,396 babies given the name since 1881, about 2,500 are alive — 74 in every hundred. Roughly 740 of them are children and 320 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1999 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.
Where the name comes from
Origin Japanese
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Nanas
- Nana Akufo-Addo (born 1944)President of Ghana from 2017 to 2025
- Nana Mouskouri (born 1934)Greek singer
- Nana Patekar (born 1951)Indian philanthropist, writer, flim actor and film maker
- Nana Alexandria (born 1949)Georgian chess player
- Nana Visitor (born 1957)American actress
- Nana Mizuki (born 1980)Japanese singer, voice actress and narrator
- Nana Asma’u (1793–1864)Nigerian princess and poet
- Nana Dzagnidze (born 1987)Georgian chess player
People named Nana with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Nana is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Nana is most concentrated in New York (8.2×), Maryland (5.3×), New Jersey (1.7×), California (1.2×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 2000
The most popular girls’ names the year Nana peaked:
Nana elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| England and Wales boys | Nana | 898 | 621st |
| England and Wales girls | Nana | 863 | 693rd |
| France girls | Nana | 575 | 1,351st |
| Belgium girls | Nana | 31 | 1,013th |
| Poland girls | Nana | 16 birth registrations | 540th |
| France boys | Nana | 15 | 6,625th |
| Ireland boys | Nana | 7 | 423rd |
| Ireland girls | Nana | 6 | 606th |
| Scotland girls | Nana | 3 | 790th |
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.
Nana: rank by region
In 2017, Nana was given 5 times or more in 1 region of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flanders | Nana | 578 | 8 |
In 2023, Nana was given 2 times or more in 1 region of Poland.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mazowieckie | Nana | 318 | 2 |
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.
Nana by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin girls | 2017–2023 | 13 | 304th |
| Berlin boys | 2017–2023 | 2 | 578th |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Nana 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 | Nana | 424 | 495 |
| Finland boys | Nana | 11 | 41 |
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 Nana lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 461 women called Nana 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rioja, La | Nana | 11 | 0.066 | 1,031 |
| Lleida | Nana | 14 | 0.063 | 1,076 |
| Huesca | Nana | 6 | 0.053 | 1,071 |
| Barcelona | Nana | 157 | 0.052 | 1,175 |
| Araba/Álava | Nana | 9 | 0.052 | 1,303 |
| Tarragona | Nana | 14 | 0.032 | 1,738 |
Listed in 23 of Spain's 52 provinces. In the other 29 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
Nana 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.