Esperanza is the Spanish word for "hope" — from the Latin sperare, meaning "to hope." It is one of the three theological virtues (Faith, Hope, Charity), and a name given in Catholic Spanish-speaking families.
Esperanza has been continuously used in Spanish-speaking countries for centuries. Sandra Cisneros's novel The House on Mango Street (1984), whose narrator is Esperanza Cordero, gave the name renewed visibility in the U.S. The bassist Esperanza Spalding has carried it in jazz.
Esperanza 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.
In Pythagorean numerology the letters of Esperanza reduce to 6, The Nurturer. This is a traditional interpretive system, not a factual claim about the name.