Xenia
Meaning
hospitality, guest; famously borne by Grand Duchess Xenia of Russia, sister of Tsar Nicholas II
The story
Xenia is the ancient Greek word for hospitality, the sacred bond between host and guest that Zeus himself was said to guard, and it survived as a saint's name in the Orthodox east long before it reached America. Its most famous bearer is Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna of Russia, sister of Tsar Nicholas II, who escaped the revolution in 1919 aboard a British warship sent by her cousin King George V and lived out four decades of quiet exile in England, one of the last living links to the vanished Romanov court. That mix of imperial glamour and survival gives the name real gravity. In US records Xenia has been quietly present for more than a century, never common, and it has ticked up a little in the 2010s and 2020s: still a rare choice, with a bright X at the front and a long history behind it.
Popularity, 1890–2024
Shape drawn from US Social Security baby-name records. Xenia peaked in the 2010s and the 2020s in nearly equal measure.
See popularity in Brazil
Popularity in Brazil
873 people · the #9,078 first name in Brazil · about 1 in 250,000 · median age 39
Among people named Xenia living in Brazil at the 2022 census, more were born in the 1980s than in any other decade.
Source: IBGE, Censo Demográfico 2022
When you meet Xenia
Most people given the name Xenia 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 Xenia deep dive
Whether you’re naming a baby or exploring your own name’s history, this is a personal letter, not a list: where Xenia 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 Xenia fits with your family’s names and surname.
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