Entry № 7486 · Russian origin

Nina Nina — Meaning, Origin & Baby Name Popularity

/ NEE-nah /
Gender
Girl
Origin
Russian
Meaning
"Little girl; grace; fire"
Syllables
2
First recorded
Medieval

A name that means "little girl; grace; fire".

Nina has converged from multiple traditions. In Russian, Nina is a diminutive of Antonina. In Spanish, niña means "little girl." In Hebrew, Nina is a diminutive of Hannah, meaning "grace." In Quechua (Andean Indigenous), nina means "fire."

Nina is widely used across Russia, Spain, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, and Latin America. The American jazz singer Nina Simone (1933-2003) is one of the most iconic Ninas. Today the name sits in the U.S. top 350.

Little girl, grace, fire. Three traditions, one name.

The name in its native script.

Nina
Transliteration
Nina
Pronunciation
/ ˈniː.nə /
Root
Grammatical form

Where Nina stands.

Nina 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.

Ninas before her.

Real people
Nina Simone
American jazz singer, pianist, and civil rights activist.
1933 – 2003
Nina Dobrev
Bulgarian-Canadian actress.
born 1989
In fiction
Nina
Heroine of Chekhov's The Seagull.
1896 play

Names connected to Nina.

The number behind Nina.

2

The Peacemaker

In Pythagorean numerology the letters of Nina reduce to 2, The Peacemaker. This is a traditional interpretive system, not a factual claim about the name.