Kalina
A plant name at root: Slavic for the viburnum tree, with its bright red berries. It climbed through the 2010s but has been fading since, given to fewer girls each year now, and only ever to girls.
Kalina Pronunciation
Kalina is pronounced kah-LEE-nah (/kaˈlina/).
What Kalina means
Where Kalina comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Kalina is a shrub, the viburnum, with white spring flowers and berries that ripen to deep red. The name is the plant. It comes from a Slavic root, kalina, shared widely across the region, and the same word names the shrub in Ukrainian, kalyna, where the berry stands as a national emblem.
Polish folk songs have kept the word alive for centuries, which is one reason it settled so easily as a girl's name. The everyday diminutive is Kalinka. The old song of that title sings about the berry, not a woman, though the sound has long drifted toward both.
Read a spring class register and a Kalina turns up among the Majas and Lenas. Most Poles hear the red-berried shrub in it before they hear anything else.
When Kalina celebrates name day
Kalina appears 1 time in the Polish name day calendar, never as a main name. The first of these dates is 11 July.
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 Kalina
1 in 1528 women in Poland is named Kalina. 14,751 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #307 among female names.
Kalina's popularity over time
299 girls were given the name in 2025, ranking #147 among newborns. It has been climbing since 2000.
Where Kalina is most popular
Kalina is most popular in Opole, 37% above the national average (110 girls born 2019–2025), followed by Lower Silesian (+34%) and Masovian (+33%). It is least common in Lesser Poland and Podlaskie, 40% and 34% below average respectively.
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Opole110 girls born+37%
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Lower Silesian368 girls born+34%
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Masovian822 girls born+33%
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Lubusz113 girls born+30%
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Łódź276 girls born+25%
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Świętokrzyskie118 girls born+22%
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West Pomeranian178 girls born+21%
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Warmian-Masurian144 girls born+15%
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Kuyavian-Pomeranian189 girls born−1%
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Greater Poland324 girls born−14%
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Pomeranian220 girls born−15%
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Lublin143 girls born−20%
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Silesian305 girls born−23%
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Subcarpathian150 girls born−29%
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Podlaskie76 girls born−34%
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Lesser Poland239 girls born−40%
Kalina as a middle name
Kalina is a first name for 14,751 women in Poland and a middle name for another 2,421, an 86/14 split. In the women's middle-name ranking it sits 183rd, between Arleta (2,423) and Teodora (2,397).
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#181 Melania2,429
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#182 Arleta2,423
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#183 Kalina2,421
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#184 Teodora2,397
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#185 Tatiana2,349