Milena
A Slavic name meaning "dear". Given to fewer girls each year now, well down from its peak in the 2010s, though it still rings familiar across Poland.
Milena Pronunciation
Milena is pronounced mee-LE-nah (/miˈlɛna/).
What Milena means
Where Milena comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Milena grows from the Slavic root mil, the small syllable that means dear or beloved. You can hear it plainly in Mila, its short variant, and in Ludmiła, where a whole beloved people sits folded inside the name. Kamila and Emilia stand nearby, close in sound if not in root.
The name settled well among the South Slavs and moved on into Czech and Polish use. Milena Jesenská, the Czech journalist and translator who received Kafka's Letters to Milena, gave it a vivid, stubborn face in the twentieth century. She joined the resistance under Nazi occupation. She died in Ravensbrück in 1944. Her name outlived her.
In Poland the meaning stays close to the surface: miła, najmilsza, the dearest. Picture a teacher reading the class register, pausing a beat at Milena before moving on. On that register it stands without a gloss, Milena, from mil, meaning dear.
When Milena celebrates name day
Milena appears 4 times in the Polish name day calendar, 1 of them as a main name, the first on 22 July.
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 Milena
1 in 290 women in Poland is named Milena. 77,625 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #145 among female names.
Milena's popularity over time
838 girls were given the name in 2025, ranking #78 among newborns. It has been stable for a decade.
Where Milena is most popular
Milena is most popular in Subcarpathian, 111% above the national average (1,175 girls born 2019–2025), followed by Lesser Poland (+96%) and Opole (+89%). It is least common in Masovian and Kuyavian-Pomeranian, 59% and 58% below average respectively.
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Subcarpathian1,175 girls born+111%
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Lesser Poland2,061 girls born+96%
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Opole403 girls born+89%
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Silesian1,744 girls born+66%
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Lower Silesian831 girls born+14%
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Pomeranian707 girls born+4%
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Podlaskie289 girls born−5%
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Lublin421 girls born−11%
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Lubusz192 girls born−16%
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Świętokrzyskie152 girls born−41%
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Warmian-Masurian186 girls born−44%
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West Pomeranian201 girls born−49%
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Łódź282 girls born−52%
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Greater Poland469 girls born−53%
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Kuyavian-Pomeranian214 girls born−58%
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Masovian666 girls born−59%
Milena as a middle name
Milena is a first name for 77,625 women in Poland and a middle name for another 9,194, an 89/11 split. In the women's middle-name ranking it sits 115th, between Brygida (9,311) and Faustyna (9,032).
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#113 Sara9,660
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#114 Brygida9,311
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#115 Milena9,194
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#116 Faustyna9,032
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#117 Celina8,843