Iva
A Slavic name meaning "willow", the tree. Fewer than a hundred women and men in Poland carry it, so meeting one stays in memory, and last year brought no newborns at all.
Iva Pronunciation
What Iva means
Where Iva comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Iva grows straight out of Slavic soil. The word names the willow tree, wierzba in Polish, and the name is that same word carried over whole. In Croatian and Serbian, iva remains the ordinary noun for a willow, so the name and the plant share one spelling.
The willow leans low over water and does not snap. It bends but holds. It is among the first trees to leaf out in spring. A child called Iva shares a name with a tree that grows where the ground stays wet, along rivers and the edges of ponds.
Short and even, the name asks little of a Polish tongue. On a school register it sits in three letters between longer names, read at a glance.
Iva means willow, the drzewo that survives a flood by giving way to it.
How many people are named Iva
1 in 262138 women in Poland is named Iva. 88 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #3752 among female names.
Iva's popularity over time
Fewer than 2 girls were given the name in 2025. It has been stable for a decade.
Iva as a middle name
Iva is a first name for 88 women in Poland and a middle name for another 8, a 92/8 split. In the women's middle-name ranking it sits 2776th, between Ingryd (8) and Ivetta (8).
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#2774 Inesa8
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#2775 Ingryd8
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#2776 Iva8
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#2777 Ivetta8
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#2778 Iwanna8