Entry № 875 · Italian origin

Ariana Ariana — Meaning, Origin & Baby Name Popularity

/ ah-ree-AN-ah /
Gender
Girl
Origin
Italian
Meaning
"Most holy; silver"
Syllables
3
First recorded
Modern (English)

A name that means "most holy; silver".

Ariana has two parallel origins. In Italian, it is the female form of Arianus, ultimately from the Greek Ariadne — "most holy" — the Cretan princess of Greek mythology who helped Theseus through the labyrinth. In Welsh, it derives from arian, meaning "silver."

Ariana entered the U.S. top 1000 in 1979 and has been rising ever since. The singer Ariana Grande, a global pop superstar since the mid-2010s, has kept the name highly visible. Today it sits in the U.S. top 50.

Most holy; silver — a Italian name.

The name in its native script.

Ariana
Transliteration
Ariana
Pronunciation
/ ˌɑː.riˈɑː.nə /
Root
Grammatical form

Where Ariana stands.

Ariana 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.

Arianas before her.

Real people
Ariana Grande
American singer and actress. One of the most-streamed artists of the 2010s and 2020s.
born 1993
Arianna Huffington
Greek-American author and businesswoman, co-founder of HuffPost.
born 1950
In fiction
Ariadne
Cretan princess in Greek mythology, who helped Theseus escape the labyrinth.
Ancient Greek myth

Names connected to Ariana.

The number behind Ariana.

8

The Visionary

In Pythagorean numerology the letters of Ariana reduce to 8, The Visionary. This is a traditional interpretive system, not a factual claim about the name.