Anna

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Anna is a female given name . It is seldom a male given name and is given as such, like Maria, for religious reasons.

Origin and meaning

The name Anna comes from the Hebrew first name Hannah ( channa , channah ) and means "grace", "grace".

However, it can also be interpreted as the female form of the old German male given name Anno or it can be related to the Celtic name of the goddess Anu .

In Roman mythology, Anna is the sister of Queen Dido (Virgil Aeneid 4, 9). In Ovid she is identified with the Roman goddess Anna Perenna (Ovid Heroides 7, 191; Fasti 3,545-656).

According to Catholic and Orthodox tradition, "Anna" (Hebrew Hannah ) is the name of the grandmother of Jesus Christ , the mother of Mary and the wife of Joachim (Hebrew Jojakim ). See also Saints Anna and Anna the third .

variants

name day

Name day for the originally Hebrew form is July 26th , the feast day of St. Anne . For the Swedish variant Annika, today is April 21 ; From 1986 to 1992 it was August 7th .

popularity

In the decade from 1900 to around 1905, Anna was one of the most common female given names and was often number one in the frequency statistics. The popularity of the name fell to a medium level in the period that followed. A clear upward trend has been observed again since 1970. In the nineties and in the new millennium, the name was already at the top of the most popular names several times.

The name is very popular in Iceland , being the second most common name in 2012 .

Name bearers

Rulers

More nobles

Ruler

There were also male bearers of this name:

Abbesses and Prioresses

Mythological people

Saints

Female first name

There are a large number of people with the given name Anna.

See also

Worth mentioning

The word "Anna" is a palindrome .

swell

  1. Otto Wimmer: Handbook of names and saints, with a history of the Christian calendar. 3rd edition Innsbruck / Vienna / Munich 1966, p. 124.
  2. ^ Max Gottschald : German onomastics. Our family names according to their origin and meaning. (1st edition Munich 1932) 3rd edition 1954, reprint Berlin 1971 p. 169.
  3. ^ Günther Drosdowski : Lexicon of first names. Origin, meaning and use of more than 3000 first names . Bibliographisches Institut, Mannheim / Zurich 1968 (= Duden-Taschenbücher , 4), p. 36.
  4. http://www.beliebte-vornamen.de/4559-anna.htm