Entry № 9923 · Spanish origin

Sor Juana Sor Juana — Meaning, Origin & Baby Name Popularity

/ sor HWAH-nah /
Gender
Girl
Origin
Spanish
Meaning
"Mexican Baroque poet-nun (the Tenth Muse)"
Syllables
3
First recorded
Modern (Spanish)

A name that means "mexican baroque poet-nun (the tenth muse)".

Sor Juana — "Sister Juana" — was the religious title of Juana Inés de la Cruz (1648-1695), the greatest poet and intellectual of Spanish colonial America. Her Respuesta a Sor Filotea (1691) is the first feminist tract written in the Americas, defending women's right to learning.

On the Mexican 200-peso bill.

The Tenth Muse.

The name in its native script.

Sor Juana
Transliteration
Sor Juana
Pronunciation
/ sɔːr ˈhwɑː.nə /
Root
Grammatical form

Where Sor Juana stands.

Sor Juana 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.

Sor Juanas before her.

Real people
Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz
Mexican Baroque poet-nun.
1648 – 1695
In fiction
Sor Juana
Subject of Maria Luisa Bemberg's I, the Worst of All.
1990 film

Names connected to Sor Juana.

The number behind Sor Juana.

9

The Giver

In Pythagorean numerology the letters of Sor Juana reduce to 9, The Giver. This is a traditional interpretive system, not a factual claim about the name.