Żanetta
Around 700 Polish women carry it, and no newborn girl has been given it since the records start in 2000. Latin at root, it means "god is gracious": most Poles will never meet a Żanetta.
Żanetta Pronunciation
Żanetta is pronounced zhah-NET-tah (/ʐaˈnɛtta/).
What Żanetta means
Where Żanetta comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
The name Żanetta reached Polish through French. Behind its French dress stands the Latin Iohannes, and behind that a Hebrew phrase that Latin borrowed and passed on: God is gracious. So the meaning is old, older than the spelling. In Polish it settled with a double t and a soft ż at the front.
There is a shorter variant, żaneta, with one t, and the two have travelled side by side. A teacher reading a class register might pause over which one a girl uses. The double letter is the tell.
The name never gathered a saint of its own or a national legend around it. It stayed a borrowing, French in sound and Latin in root, worn by women who liked how it looked on an official form at the urząd. Uncommon is not the same as plain.
What it says has not changed since the Latin. Żanetta means bóg jest łaskawy, God is gracious.
How many people are named Żanetta
1 in 31707 women in Poland is named Żanetta. 711 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #1104 among female names.
Żanetta as a middle name
Żanetta is a first name for 711 women in Poland and a middle name for another 183, an 80/20 split. In the women's middle-name ranking it sits 504th, between Juliana (183) and Albertyna (179).
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#502 Jacqueline183
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#503 Juliana183
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#504 Żanetta183
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#505 Albertyna179
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#506 Edith178