Brianna is the English feminine of Brian — from the Old Irish Brígh ("noble, high, strong") — first popularized in Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene (1590). A top-20 US baby name from 1991 to 2007, peaking at #14 in 2002. Brianna Keilar (born 1980) — *American journalist of Australian-Cuban heritage; co-anchor of CNN's CNN News Central (2023-present); previously New Day (2021-2023) and CNN Right Now with Brianna Keilar (2018-2021); one of the most-recognized faces of CNN's primetime/morning lineup of the 2020s. Author of Saving 9: A Veterans Resilience Project (2024), focused on military and veteran mental health. Brianna Randall Fraser — heroine of Diana Gabaldon's Outlander book series (1991-present) — the 20th-century time-traveling daughter of Claire and Jamie Fraser; played by Sophie Skelton in the Starz adaptation (2014-present). Brianna Hildebrand (born 1996) — Deadpool (2016) and Deadpool 2* (2018) as Negasonic Teenage Warhead. Brianna Decker — American Olympic gold-medalist hockey player (Pyeongchang 2018). Brianna Wu — American video-game developer and US Congressional candidate; one of the central figures of the 2014 Gamergate controversy. Brianna LaPaglia (Brianna Chickenfry) — popular American podcaster and influencer.
Featured throughout 1990s-2020s American culture.
In Pythagorean numerology the letters of Brianna reduce to 5, The Seeker. This is a traditional interpretive system, not a factual claim about the name.