Hanka
A short form of Hanna, Hebrew at root, carrying the sense "grace". Only about 1,150 women in Poland answer to it and no newborns were given it last year, so meeting one stays memorable.
Hanka Pronunciation
Hanka is pronounced KHAHN-kah (/ˈxanka/).
What Hanka means
Where Hanka comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Hanka is a Polish form of Hannah, which comes from the Hebrew Channah. The meaning is grace. That word, łaska in Polish, sat inside the name long before anyone opened a dictionary to find it, since Channah belongs to the Hebrew scriptures rather than to any later invention.
Around Hanka stand its relatives. Anna is the formal variant, the version a teacher reads aloud from a class register before a girl explains that friends call her Hania. Hania is the diminutive, softer and shorter, and Hanka lands somewhere between the two, familiar without being childish.
Because Hanka traces back to Anna, it keeps Anna's name-day. Girls named Hanka can mark their imieniny on 26 July, the feast of Saint Anne. So the name reaches back through Hannah to a single Hebrew root meaning grace.
How many people are named Hanka
1 in 19569 women in Poland is named Hanka. 1,152 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #901 among female names.
Hanka's popularity over time
Fewer than 2 girls were given the name in 2025. It has been stable for a decade.
Hanka as a middle name
Hanka is a first name for 1,152 women in Poland and a middle name for another 365, a 76/24 split. In the women's middle-name ranking it sits 356th, between Żaklina (367) and Irene (365).
-
#354 Nur367
-
#355 Żaklina367
-
#356 Hanka365
-
#357 Irene365
-
#358 Dobrawa364