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Anna

More than a million Polish women carry it, yet it's handed down far less often than it once was. The root is Hebrew, where it means grace: a favor freely given.

Anna Pronunciation

Anna is pronounced AHN-nah (/ˈanna/).

Alive in 2025
1,068,341
Newborns 2025
1,147
National rank
#1
Next name day
26 July
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What Anna means

Where Anna comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.

Anna comes from the Hebrew Hannah, from a root meaning grace, or favour. In the Hebrew Bible, Hannah is the mother of the prophet Samuel, and her song of thanks is one of the oldest passages in that book. The name passed through Greek and Latin into Anna, and reached Polish records by the medieval period.

In Poland it grew a family around it. Hanna and Hana stand as full variants, while Hania and Haneczka are the diminutives a child hears at home. Call the name across a school register and you might hear several answer at once.

The meaning is grace. In Polish that is łaska and wdzięk.

Name-day falls on 26 July, shared with Saint Anne, by tradition the mother of Mary. Grandmothers named Anna often keep that imieniny as a holiday of their own. On official forms the name reads Anna; at home it shortens to Hania.

When Anna celebrates name day

Anna appears 8 times in the Polish name day calendar, 1 of them as a main name, the first on 26 July.

Next name day
26 July
Monday in 2027
Next one in 319 days
Name days

The days Polish calendars list this name on. By custom you celebrate one of them, usually the first after your birthday.

Also celebrates

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 Anna

1 in 21 women in Poland is named Anna. 1,068,341 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #1 among female names.

People with the name Anna 2019 → 2025
1,068,341 +5,320 since 2019
2020 1,062,221 -800
2021 1,057,424 -4,797
2022 1,053,043 -4,381
2023 1,075,658 +22,615
2024 1,072,629 -3,029
2025 1,068,341 -4,288

Anna's popularity over time

1,147 girls were given the name in 2025, ranking #62 among newborns. It has been falling steadily since 2000. Still the #1 name among living women, even as it slips to #62 among newborns.

hover a bar to explore
1,147 newborns with the name Anna in 2025
national rank #62 that year

Where Anna is most popular

Anna is most popular in Lesser Poland, 25% above the national average (1,695 girls born 2019–2025), followed by Podlaskie (+10%) and Masovian (+6%). It is least common in Łódź and Świętokrzyskie, both 15% below average.

More common than average Less common than average

Anna as a middle name

Anna is a first name for 1,068,341 women in Poland and a middle name for another 896,998, a 54/46 split, almost evenly. In the women's middle-name ranking it sits 2nd, between Maria (1,481,845) and Katarzyna (417,647).

As a first name
1,068,341
As a middle name
896,998
first name 54% middle name 46%
Middle-name ranking women

Look up another name

Search the register, or step through the ranking one place at a time.

Next in ranking → Agnieszka #2