Alana
The story
Alana is a name with two honest passports. Hawaiian tradition reads it as awakening or offering, precious; the other road arrives as the feminine of Alan, the old Celtic name. Most American families are somewhere between the two, choosing a sound rather than an etymology, and the record shows how steadily they have: about 1,100 in the 1940s, rising every decade to nearly 18,000 in the 2000s, then 16,300 in the 2010s and 9,900 so far this decade. In our records it is a girls' name outright, about 68,300 to 31, and this decade literally every one, 9,922 to zero. Lana sits inside it as the sleek short form. Its cousin Alani, the orange tree, climbs two entries below it in our floor worklist, which says something about how good this vowel pattern currently sounds to American ears.
Popularity, 1890–2024
Shape drawn from US Social Security baby-name records. Alana peaked in the 2010s and the 2020s in nearly equal measure.
Popularity in Brazil
121,124 people · the #268 first name in Brazil · about 1 in 1,678 · median age 12
Among people named Alana living in Brazil at the 2022 census, more were born in the 2010s than in any other decade.
The census also counted 21,850 born between 2020 and August 2022, too recent a span to chart.
Source: IBGE, Censo Demográfico 2022
When you meet Alana
Most people given the name Alana in the United States are teenagers or young adults today.
Estimated from US Social Security birth registrations and typical lifespans; a rough guide, not a rule.
The Alana deep dive
Whether you’re naming a baby or exploring your own name’s history, this is a personal letter, not a list: where Alana truly comes from, how it traveled, and what a century of records reveals. If you have grown a tree on nametree, it also considers how Alana fits with your family’s names and surname.
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