Melania
From Latin, with a meaning that reads as "black, dark". Once uncommon enough that meeting one stuck in the memory, it's now climbing: more girls were given the name last year than in years past.
Melania Pronunciation
Melania is pronounced me-LAH-nyah (/mɛˈlaɲa/).
What Melania means
Where Melania comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Melania comes to us from Latin, where it carried the sense of black or dark. Behind the Latin sits the Greek word melas, the same root found in terms for dark pigment. The name is old. Two Roman women made it known in the fourth and fifth centuries, Melania the Elder and her granddaughter Melania the Younger, both later honoured as saints.
The variant Melanie travels more easily across borders, softer at the ending, while the diminutive Mela shortens it for everyday use. On a Polish school register you might find more than one of these, a girl signing Melania in full and answering to Mela.
The short meaning, black or dark, points to colour before it points to mood. It named a shade first. What a girl called Melania makes of that stays her own affair, and the record of the name remains open. Read down a class list and it sits there plainly: Melania by the book, dark by root, Mela for short.
When Melania celebrates name day
Melania appears 2 times in the Polish name day calendar, 1 of them as a main name, the first on 31 December.
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 Melania
1 in 2595 women in Poland is named Melania. 8,687 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #384 among female names.
Melania's popularity over time
499 girls were given the name in 2025, ranking #105 among newborns. It has been climbing since 2000.
Where Melania is most popular
Melania is most popular in Pomeranian, 40% above the national average (347 girls born 2019–2025), followed by Greater Poland (+39%) and Subcarpathian (+38%). It is least common in West Pomeranian and Łódź, 33% and 32% below average respectively.
-
Pomeranian347 girls born+40%
-
Greater Poland504 girls born+39%
-
Subcarpathian281 girls born+38%
-
Kuyavian-Pomeranian241 girls born+31%
-
Podlaskie138 girls born+25%
-
Lesser Poland372 girls born−3%
-
Warmian-Masurian116 girls born−4%
-
Opole72 girls born−7%
-
Lower Silesian228 girls born−14%
-
Masovian509 girls born−15%
-
Silesian322 girls born−16%
-
Lublin144 girls born−17%
-
Świętokrzyskie68 girls born−27%
-
Lubusz58 girls born−31%
-
Łódź145 girls born−32%
-
West Pomeranian96 girls born−33%
Melania as a middle name
Melania is a first name for 8,687 women in Poland and a middle name for another 2,429, a 78/22 split. In the women's middle-name ranking it sits 181st, between Elizabeth (2,460) and Arleta (2,423).
-
#179 Ludmiła2,526
-
#180 Elizabeth2,460
-
#181 Melania2,429
-
#182 Arleta2,423
-
#183 Kalina2,421