Yana
A Slavic name meaning "god is gracious", the same root that sits behind Jana and Anna. Uncommon in Poland and now given to fewer girls than the average name, so meeting one tends to stick.
Yana Pronunciation
Yana is pronounced ih-AH-nah (/ɨˈana/).
What Yana means
Where Yana comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Yana comes from Slavic soil, a name at home in Ukrainian and Russian speech. It belongs to the family that runs back through John to the Hebrew Yohanan, which means god is gracious. The grace here is theological, a statement about what the divine gives rather than what the bearer does.
The meaning was never a description of character. It began as a small sentence of faith, and the name kept the sentence long after the grammar faded from view. Ukrainian and Russian speakers carried Yana without needing to unpack it.
Say it once. Two syllables settle the matter. On a Polish class register, Yana stands slightly apart from the local Joanna, close kin yet plainly its own spelling. The connection is real: both descend from that same Hebrew root, and both hold the meaning god is gracious.
How many people are named Yana
1 in 1124 women in Poland is named Yana. 20,063 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #274 among female names.
Yana's popularity over time
19 girls were given the name in 2025, ranking #529 among newborns. It is making a comeback after a low in 2018. Still the #274 name among living women, even as it slips to #529 among newborns.
Where parents choose Yana
Yana is most popular in Masovian, 166% above the national average (27 girls born 2019–2025), followed by West Pomeranian (+65%) and Opole (+51%). It is least common in Lesser Poland and Łódź, 69% and 45% below average respectively.
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Masovian
+166%1 in 13,121 babies
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West Pomeranian
+65%1 in 21,106 babies
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Opole
+51%1 in 23,048 babies
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Lesser Poland
−69%1 in 113,458 babies
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Łódź
−45%1 in 63,359 babies
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Silesian
−8%1 in 37,931 babies
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Masovian+166% 27 born1 in 13,121 babies+166%
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West Pomeranian+65% 4 born1 in 21,106 babies+65%
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Opole+51% 2 born1 in 23,048 babies+51%
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Greater Poland+46% 9 born1 in 23,916 babies+46%
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Lower Silesian+33% 6 born1 in 26,189 babies+33%
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Pomeranian−5% 4 born1 in 36,830 babies−5%
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Silesian−8% 6 born1 in 37,931 babies−8%
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Łódź−45% 2 born1 in 63,359 babies−45%
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Lesser Poland−69% 2 born1 in 113,458 babies−69%
Yana as a middle name
Yana is a first name for 20,063 women in Poland and a middle name for another 14, a 100/0 split. In the women's middle-name ranking it sits 2042nd, between Wenus (14) and Zaneta (14).
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#2040 Weneta14
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#2041 Wenus14
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#2042 Yana14
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#2043 Zaneta14
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#2044 Zenaida14