Jana

Popularity, 1880–2025

girls named Jana boys named Jana

By the numbers

Total US births

46,223

Estimated living today

42,000

Median age today

51

Peak year

1961

Best rank

226th

Rank in 2025

1,241st

First recorded

1921

Girls / boys

46,185 / 38

How old the living Janas are

born that year still alive today

Of the 46,223 babies given the name since 1921, about 42,000 are alive — 90 in every hundred. Roughly 4,200 of them are children and 7,600 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1974 and half after.

An estimate, not a count. SSA births aged forward through SSA cohort life tables, which know nothing about who left the country or arrived in it — so for a name that mostly came to America rather than being born in it, this is a floor rather than a figure. Where you fall among living Americans.

Where the name comes from

Origin Czech

From Czech Jana, ultimately from Koine Greek Ἰωάννα, from Hebrew יוֹחָנָה, the feminized form of יְהוֹחָנָן which produced John and its many doublets. As a placeholder name, cf.

Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Notable Janas

• Jana Novotná (1968–2017)Czech tennis player
• Jana Burčeska (born 1993)Macedonian singer
• Jana Cova (born 1980)Czech pornographic actress
• Jana Pittman (born 1982)Australian hurdler and bobsledder
• Jana Fett (born 1996)Croatian female tennis player
• Jana Brejchová (1940–2026)Czech actress
• Jana Tichá (born 1965)Czech astronomer
• Jana Kramer (born 1983)American singer and actress

People named Jana with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).

Where Jana is most common

• TX6,106
• CA4,442
• IL1,866
• OK1,793
• OH1,665
• NY1,512
• MO1,444
• IN1,441
• FL1,371
• MI1,303

Relative to how many babies each state records, Jana is most concentrated in Utah (3.1×), Oklahoma (3.1×), Idaho (2.9×), Kansas (2.5×).

Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.

Names of 1961

The most popular girls’ names the year Jana peaked:

• Mary
• Lisa
• Susan
• Linda
• Karen
• Patricia

All the names of 1961

Jana elsewhere

Counts come from each country's own records and are not comparable with the US figures above, which cover different years and a different definition of a recorded name. Where a country writes the name several ways, the spellings are added together and the most common is shown. A row marked name registrations is counting something else: Portugal ranks each of a child's two given names separately, so a girl registered Maria Leonor is in both the Maria row and the Leonor row, and that figure is not a number of children.

Jana: births by region

Parts of a country counted above, not extra births. The share is what makes the regions comparable: they differ in size by a factor of three hundred.

By canton, Jana is most concentrated in Appenzell Ausserrhoden, where 0.50% of children were given it – 58 of them.

Jana: rank by region

In 2025, Jana was given 5 times or more in 3 regions of Belgium.

In 2017, Jana was among the 10 most common names in 2 regions of Italy.

In 2025, Jana was given 2 times or more in 10 regions of Poland.

In 2025, with the country taken in 11 areas rather than 3, Jana appears in the lists for Brussels-Capital Region (107th), Province of Hainaut (153rd), Province of East Flanders (188th) and Province of Antwerp (326th).

Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children, Italy after 10 names, Poland below 2 children – and published nothing after. So a region missing here is one where the name fell outside what was published, not one where it went unused. Places are shared where names tie, and the further down a list a place is, the more names can share it.

Jana by city

One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.

Jana among the living

How many people each country's register counts under the name, rather than how many were given it in any one year. Each register was read on one date, and they are not the same date.

A count of people on a register – Finland on 4 August 2026 – and not of births, so it cannot be compared with the figures above. Names with very few bearers are withheld, and a dash in the first-forename column means the register would not say rather than that nobody goes by it.

Where Jana lives in Spain

Not a count of births but of people: 11,254 women called Jana were living in Spain on 1 January 2025, of every age, born in any year. Where they live is not spread evenly.

Women: the provinces where it is densest

Listed in 50 of Spain's 52 provinces. In the other 2 it is either held by fewer than 5 people – the point below which the source withholds a name – or it fell past the 5,000 names the source will print for one province. Neither means nobody there is called it. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.

Related names

• Janet
• Janice
• Jane
• Jan
• Janie
• Janelle
• Janis
• Janine
• Janette
• Janae
• Janna
• Janell

Jana against another name

Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.

• Jana vs Janet
• Jana vs Janice
• Jana vs Jane
• Jana vs Jan
• Jana vs Janie
• Jana vs Janelle

Compare Jana with a name of your own