Entry № 695 · Hebrew origin

Anna Anna — Meaning, Origin & Baby Name Popularity

/ AN-ah /
Gender
Girl
Origin
Hebrew
Meaning
"Grace"
Syllables
2
First recorded
Ancient

A name that means "grace".

Anna is the Latin and Greek form of the Hebrew Hannah — from Channah (חַנָּה), meaning "grace" or "favour." In the New Testament Anna is a prophetess who recognises the infant Jesus in the temple.

Anna is one of the most widely used girl names in the world — found in some form (Anna, Ann, Anne, Anya, Annie) in nearly every European language. Today it sits in the U.S. top 60 and is consistently in the top 5 in many European countries.

Grace. Four letters. Used in every European language.

The name in its native script.

חַנָּה
Transliteration
Channah
Pronunciation
/ ˈæn.ə /
Root
Grammatical form

Where Anna stands.

Anna does not currently appear in the US Social Security Administration's top 1,000 girls' names, so we don't publish a US rank or birth count for it. That says nothing about the name's standing elsewhere in the world — only that it sits outside the ranked US data we rely on.

Annas before her.

Real people
Anna Wintour
British-American editor. Editor-in-chief of Vogue since 1988.
born 1949
Anna Pavlova
Russian prima ballerina.
1881 – 1931
In fiction
Anna Karenina
Heroine of Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina.
1877 novel
Princess Anna
Heroine of Disney's Frozen.
2013 film

Names connected to Anna.

The number behind Anna.

3

The Communicator

In Pythagorean numerology the letters of Anna reduce to 3, The Communicator. This is a traditional interpretive system, not a factual claim about the name.