Rowena
Around fifty women in Poland carry it, and no girl has been given it this century: most Poles have never met one. A Germanic name at root, built from words for fame and joy.
Rowena Pronunciation
Rowena is pronounced ro-VE-nah (/rɔˈvɛna/).
What Rowena means
Where Rowena comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Rowena grows from Germanic soil. Word-students trace it to hrod, meaning fame, joined to wynn, which could mean joy or friend. That second element pulls in two directions, and the name keeps both readings: fame and joy in English, sława i przyjaźń for a Polish reader.
The oldest Rowena lives in old British legend. Geoffrey of Monmouth, writing in the twelfth century, named a Saxon woman Rowena, daughter of Hengist, who married the British king Vortigern. For centuries the name mostly slept.
Then Walter Scott woke it. His novel Ivanhoe, published in 1819, gave readers Lady Rowena, and English parents began using the name again. It spread from a book. On a Polish class register today, a Rowena would sit rare among the Zuzannas and Julias, an English guest whose Germanic root still means fame and joy.
How many people are named Rowena
1 in 450877 women in Poland is named Rowena. 50 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #5364 among female names.
Rowena as a middle name
Rowena is a first name for 50 women in Poland and a middle name for another 3, a 94/6 split. In the women's middle-name ranking it sits 5209th, between Rosmery (3) and Roya (3).
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#5207 Rosetta3
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#5208 Rosmery3
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#5209 Rowena3
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#5210 Roya3
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#5211 Rozália3