Janina
Around 208,000 Polish women carry Janina, most from older generations, and after years out of fashion it's climbing back onto birth certificates. Slavic in origin, it means "god is gracious", and it stays strictly a girl's name.
Janina Pronunciation
Janina is pronounced yah-NYEE-nah (/jaˈɲina/).
What Janina means
Where Janina comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Janina begins with Jan, the Polish form of a name that travelled from the Hebrew Yohanan, meaning God is gracious. Slavic speech shaped the vowels, and the feminine ending -ina turned a man's name into a woman's. The grace named here is old, older than Poland itself.
In daily use the name loosens. Janka is the brisk diminutive, Jasia the tender one, and Yanina the spelling that drifts eastward across the border. A child answers to all of them.
On a school class register the full Janina sits in the first column, while the girl herself might sign a drawing as Jasia. Next to her, in another year, a boy named Jan is the same name in a different coat. The sense underneath does not move: God is gracious.
When Janina celebrates name day
Janina appears 3 times in the Polish name day calendar, 1 of them as a main name, the first on 24 June.
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 Janina
1 in 109 women in Poland is named Janina. 207,669 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #61 among female names.
Janina's popularity over time
154 girls were given the name in 2025, ranking #211 among newborns. It has been climbing since 2000. Still the #61 name among living women, even as it slips to #211 among newborns.
Where Janina is most popular
Janina is most popular in Masovian, 81% above the national average (343 girls born 2019–2025), followed by Greater Poland (+33%) and Pomeranian (+18%). It is least common in Subcarpathian and Łódź, 69% and 43% below average respectively.
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Masovian343 girls born+81%
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Greater Poland153 girls born+33%
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Pomeranian93 girls born+18%
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Lower Silesian97 girls born+15%
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Lubusz26 girls born−2%
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Kuyavian-Pomeranian54 girls born−8%
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West Pomeranian38 girls born−16%
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Opole19 girls born−23%
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Lublin40 girls born−27%
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Lesser Poland87 girls born−29%
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Silesian87 girls born−29%
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Warmian-Masurian25 girls born−35%
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Podlaskie21 girls born−40%
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Łódź39 girls born−43%
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Świętokrzyskie17 girls born−43%
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Subcarpathian20 girls born−69%
Janina as a middle name
Janina is a first name for 207,669 women in Poland and a middle name for another 158,653, a 57/43 split, almost evenly. In the women's middle-name ranking it sits 16th, between Monika (163,923) and Helena (155,002).
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#14 Jadwiga193,823
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#15 Monika163,923
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#16 Janina158,653
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#17 Helena155,002
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#18 Marta135,087