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Gena

Girls' name

Possibly kin, family + woman, wife, through Genevieve

Gena has been given to 12,824 babies in the U.S. since 1880. It was used fewer than 5 times in 2025, so it doesn't appear in the latest year's list — today it's a genuinely uncommon pick. Its peak year was 1968, with 502 recorded.

Babies named Gena, 2024

1 in 418,000

Gena over time, 1880–2025

Girls
020040060018801900192019401960198020002020

Based on births in the U.S. Babies given the name each year. Hover the chart — or focus it and use the arrow keys — for any year. Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Gena: meaning, origin, and history

Possibly kin, family + woman, wife, through Genevieve

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Gena means

Gena belongs to the name family reached through Gena → Genevieve. Its meaning is “kin, family + woman, wife”.

Origin, language, and formation

Gena is used in English.

Related names and everyday forms

Related names include Gina and Genevieve.

Pronunciation and spelling

In English, Gena is pronounced /ˈd͡ʒɛnə/.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 12,824 girls were recorded with the name Gena between 1880 and 2024. Its highest annual count was 502 in 1968; its best national rank was #420 in 1968.

Sources & methodologyReferences, data & attribution

Meaning, origin, and language notes draw on the references below.

American popularity figures use published Social Security Administration records for this exact spelling. Counts below five for a name, sex, and year are omitted.

Wiktionary material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

How common is Gena?

Gena had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 2024, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 2024
1 in 418,000
8 of 3,342,801 births
Among girls only
1 in 203,000
<0.01% of girls
Rank, 2024
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
289,633 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Gena sits on the popularity scale

Rarest published (5 a year)#1 — Olivia (13,544)

Chance at least one other child shares the name

If the other children were drawn at random from the 2024 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.

Class of 20Under 1%
Class of 30Under 1%
Grade of 100Under 1%
School of 500Under 1%

Put another way: gather 289,633 children born in 2024 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Gena. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Genas were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Gena was born before 1969 — so the typical Gena is around 56 today.

Median birth year
1969
About 56 years old
Biggest decade
1960s
30.9% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
3.9%
Mostly a past generation
Recorded since 1950
11,395
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1960s — 30.9% of all recorded uses (3,967).

Is Gena rising or falling?

Rank movement and count movement can disagree — the number of distinct names in use keeps growing, so a name holding a steady count still slides down the list. Both are shown.

Rank vs 1 year ago
—
Not ranked then
Rank vs 5 years ago
New entry
Not ranked then
Rank vs 10 years ago
—
Not ranked then
Births vs 10 years ago
—
Not published both years
Share of its own peak
0%
Peak was 1968 (502)
Years since peak
57
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Shifting
19.5% average annual change
Best rank ever
#420
1968

Spellings of Gena

Gena is not the most common spelling — Anna is, with 18.9% against Gena's 0.27%.

Grouped by closeness of spelling (up to two letter changes), same sex, with a floor on all-time use. It catches Sophia/Sofia and Aiden/Ayden, and misses spellings that sound alike but look different, like Sean and Shawn.

Where Gena is used

Across 1910–2025, Gena was most concentrated in Oklahoma — about 1 in 8,333 girls, against 1 in 17,845 across all states with data. It was least common in Connecticut (1 in —).

012 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1Oklahoma1 in 8,333
  2. 2Arkansas1 in 11,111
  3. 3Tennessee1 in 11,111
  4. 4Texas1 in 11,111
  5. 5Alabama1 in 12,500
  6. 6California1 in 12,500
  7. 7Georgia1 in 12,500
  8. 8Louisiana1 in 12,500

Shading is the share of that state's recorded girls given this name, not the raw count — otherwise the map would just show which states are biggest. Unshaded states have no published records for this period. U.S. birth records suppress state-year counts below 5; state counts therefore don't add up to the national total. Every state links to its full rankings. Gena has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Gena around the world

Where Gena ranks in official birth records elsewhere in the world. Rankings only — the number of births isn’t comparable between places, so it isn’t shown.

  • England & Wales
    1996–1997
    #3,174
    in 1997
  • France
    1985–2025
    #5,315
    in 2025
  • Canada
    1991–2005
    #2,828
    in 2005
  • South Australia
    1944–1996
    #712
    in 1996

Popularity data from Office for National Statistics, Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques, Statistics Canada and Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). ONS data under Open Government Licence v3.0. INSEE data under Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0. StatCan data under Statistics Canada Open Licence. CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0.

Notable people named Gena

People whose public names include Gena, backed by Wikidata given-name records and ordered by linked Wikimedia pages. The name may be a middle name.

People data from Wikidata (CC0). Fame is measured, not judged — the order reflects how widely each person is documented, not the U.S. birth records popularity this page is otherwise about.

Gena in other languages

Cross-language forms and variants of Gena. Linked forms have their own page here.

GinaJenaGennaEugenaGennadyEugénie

Variant forms from Wikidata (CC0). Most are used mainly outside the United States; U.S. birth records statistics cover US usage only.

Gena by the numbers

The raw record for each sex the name is used for.

As a girl's name

Rank in 2025
Unranked
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
—
Best rank ever
#420
1968
Peak year
1968
502 that year
First recorded
1880
Last recorded
2024
All-time count
12,824
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Gena

Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.

JenaTenaGeneZenaDeenaSienaDenaAlenaGenieRenaXenaSenaAleenaLeenaRowenaGentryJimenaKenaMilenaEnaSheenaMenaMakenaGeneva

Names with a curve like Gena

Not spelling — timing. These names rose, peaked and faded in the same years as Gena, so they read as being from the same moment even when they look nothing alike.

KarynShellieTamraFeleciaCarynMarciKimberleeDeidreTammiDeirdreLetitiaAngelia

Sibling names for Gena

Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.

Explore around Gena

Top names of 1968, Gena's peak yearThe 1960s in fullOther names that peaked in 1968Girls' names starting with G