Zhanna
Rooted in Hebrew for "god is gracious", it reaches Polish through Russian and Ukrainian. Only about 4,500 women here carry it, and it goes to virtually no newborns now: a name you'd remember meeting.
Zhanna Pronunciation
Zhanna is pronounced SKHAHN-nah (/ˈsxanna/).
What Zhanna means
Where Zhanna comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Zhanna traces back to the Hebrew name Yohanan, which means "God is gracious." The route was long. It passed through the French Jeanne before settling into Russian and Ukrainian speech, where it became Zhanna, a name most Poles hear as Slavic rather than biblical.
In Poland the name appears in its adapted spelling, Żanna. The sound is soft and short. On a school register it sits among the Katarzynas and Annas, and the teacher rarely stumbles over it.
The meaning has stayed close to its source. Where many names collect later associations, Żanna keeps the old sense of God is gracious. That Hebrew root links it, distantly, to Jan and Joanna, cousins grown from the same word, Yohanan.
How many people are named Zhanna
1 in 5002 women in Poland is named Zhanna. 4,509 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #508 among female names.
Zhanna as a middle name
Zhanna is a first name for 4,509 women in Poland and a middle name for another 3, a 100/0 split. In the women's middle-name ranking it sits 5378th, between Zeyneb (3) and Zi (3).
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#5376 Zewdu3
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#5377 Zeyneb3
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#5378 Zhanna3
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#5379 Zi3
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#5380 Zinajda3