Marlena
Marlena presses two familiar names together, Maria and Magdalena, the way the actress born Marie Magdalene did when she signed herself Marlene. It still rings familiar in Poland, but fewer girls get it each year: heritage now, less a name for newborns.
Marlena Pronunciation
Marlena is pronounced mahr-LE-nah (/marˈlɛna/).
What Marlena means
Where Marlena comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Marlena grew out of two older names, Maria and Magdalena. The Latin Magdalena points back to Magdala, a fishing town on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, which is why the name has long been read as woman from Magdala. Maria gave the front, Magdalena gave the close.
The blend has a famous witness. The actress born Marie Magdalene Dietrich pressed her two names together and signed herself Marlene. Marlena is the Polish spelling of that same fusion. Read it on a school class register and you meet both saints' names folded into one.
So the meaning runs a little sideways. Marlena does not translate cleanly on its own. Its sense comes from Magdalena, and through Magdalena from a place, Magdala, a name on a map before it was ever a name on a person. Whoever bears it holds the older woman from Magdala inside four syllables.
When Marlena celebrates name day
Marlena appears 2 times in the Polish name day calendar, 1 of them as a main name, the first on 23 October.
The days Polish calendars list this name on. By custom you celebrate one of them, usually the first after your birthday.
Rarer dates. Only the most complete calendars add this name on these days. Most skip them, so hardly anyone celebrates then.
How many people are named Marlena
1 in 464 women in Poland is named Marlena. 48,584 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #194 among female names.
Marlena's popularity over time
87 girls were given the name in 2025, ranking #266 among newborns. It has been falling steadily since 2000. Still the #194 name among living women, even as it slips to #266 among newborns.
Where Marlena is most popular
Marlena is most popular in Opole, 214% above the national average (59 girls born 2019–2025), followed by Subcarpathian (+146%) and Lesser Poland (+106%). It is least common in Lubusz and Kuyavian-Pomeranian, 75% and 66% below average respectively.
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Opole59 girls born+214%
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Subcarpathian121 girls born+146%
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Lesser Poland191 girls born+106%
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Silesian151 girls born+63%
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Lower Silesian70 girls born+9%
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Lublin32 girls born−24%
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Podlaskie19 girls born−29%
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West Pomeranian24 girls born−30%
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Pomeranian40 girls born−33%
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Warmian-Masurian18 girls born−39%
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Świętokrzyskie13 girls born−43%
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Łódź26 girls born−50%
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Masovian64 girls born−56%
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Greater Poland34 girls born−61%
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Kuyavian-Pomeranian15 girls born−66%
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Lubusz5 girls born−75%
Marlena as a middle name
Marlena is a first name for 48,584 women in Poland and a middle name for another 10,361, an 82/18 split. In the women's middle-name ranking it sits 107th, between Dagmara (10,634) and Nikola (10,284).
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#105 Eugenia10,856
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#106 Dagmara10,634
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#107 Marlena10,361
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#108 Nikola10,284
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#109 Jagoda10,085