Entry № 5303 · English origin

Katniss Katniss — Meaning, Origin & Baby Name Popularity

/ KAT-nis /
Gender
Girl
Origin
English
Meaning
"Arrowhead plant (The Hunger Games heroine)"
Syllables
2
First recorded
Modern (English)

A name that means "arrowhead plant (the hunger games heroine)".

Katniss is the English common name of the edible aquatic plant Sagittaria — also called "arrowhead" or "duck-potato" — chosen by Suzanne Collins for her heroine to evoke wilderness, food gathering, and Diana the huntress. The name has been steadily entering US baby-name records since 2012, peaking at around 150 births per year. A modern feminist warrior archetype.

Arrowhead plant (The Hunger Games heroine) — a English name.

The name in its native script.

Katniss
Transliteration
Katniss
Pronunciation
/ ˈkæt.nɪs /
Root
Grammatical form

Where Katniss stands.

Katniss 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.

Katnisss before her.

Real people
Suzanne Collins
Author of The Hunger Games.
born 1962
In fiction
Katniss Everdeen
The Hunger Games.
2008

Names connected to Katniss.

The number behind Katniss.

3

The Communicator

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