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Irena

#5,304 in 2025Girls' name

Peace, through Īrēnē

Irena has been given to 2,186 babies in the U.S. since 1880. In 2025 it ranked #5,304 of 17,293 girls’ names in use. Its peak year was 2024, with 34 recorded.

Babies named Irena, 2025

1 in 138,000

Irena over time, 1880–2025

Girls
01020304018801900192019401960198020002020

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Irena: meaning, origin, and history

Peace, through Īrēnē

Greek

What Irena means

Irena belongs to the name family reached through Irena → Īrēnē → Εἰρήνη. Its meaning is “peace”.

Origin, language, and formation

Irena is used in Czech, Faroese, Lithuanian, Polish, Serbo-Croatian and Slovak. Its origins include Greek.

Related names and everyday forms

Related names include Irene, Īrēnē and Εἰρήνη.

Pronunciation and spelling

In Czech, Irena is pronounced [ˈɪrɛna].

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 2,186 girls were recorded with the name Irena between 1880 and 2025. Its highest annual count was 34 in 2024; its best national rank was #580 in 1882.

Over 5 years its rank fell, from #4,390 in 2020 to #5,304 in 2025. Over 10 years its rank fell, from #4,528 in 2015 to #5,304 in 2025.

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 Irena?

Everything below is computed from the 2025 data — the most recent year available.

Among all babies, 2025
1 in 138,000
24 of 3,315,165 births
Among girls only
1 in 67,000
<0.01% of girls
Rank, 2025
#5,304
of 17,293 girls’ names in use
Coin-flip room size
95,747 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Irena 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 2025 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 95,747 children born in 2025 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Irena. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Irenas were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Irena was born before 1974 — so the typical Irena is around 51 today.

Median birth year
1974
About 51 years old
Biggest decade
2010s
12.6% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
27.4%
Spread across generations
Recorded since 1950
1,434
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

2010s — 12.6% of all recorded uses (276).

Is Irena 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
−1,065
Places dropped
Rank vs 5 years ago
−914
Places dropped
Rank vs 10 years ago
−776
Places dropped
Births vs 10 years ago
0.77×
Fewer babies than then
Share of its own peak
70.6%
Peak was 2024 (34)
Years since peak
1
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Shifting
16.9% average annual change
Best rank ever
#580
1882

Spellings of Irena

Irena is not the most common spelling — Brenda is, with 27.5% against Irena's 0.10%.

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 Irena is used

Across 1910–2025, Irena was most concentrated in California — about 1 in 100,000 girls, against 1 in 219,649 across all states with data. It was least common in New Jersey (1 in —).

01 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1California1 in 100,000
  2. 2New York1 in 100,000
  3. 3Maryland1 in —
  4. 4New Jersey1 in —

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. Irena has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Irena around the world

Where Irena 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
    2000–2025
    #4,867
    in 2025
  • Scotland
    2016–2016
    #798
    in 2016
  • France
    1900–2025
    #6,007
    in 2025
  • Norway
    1880–1990
    #636
    in 1990
  • Canada
    1991–2021
    #2,930
    in 2021
  • South Australia
    1946–1989
    #692
    in 1989

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

Notable people named Irena

People whose public names include Irena, 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.

Irena in other languages

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

IraIrenErenaIreenIreneIrinaIrynaIrèneIrainaIrenea

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

Irena by the numbers

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

As a girl's name

Rank in 2025
#5,304
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
Down 914
Best rank ever
#580
1882
Peak year
2024
34 that year
First recorded
1880
Last recorded
2025
All-time count
2,186
Count in 2025
24

Names similar to Irena

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

IrelynReenaNeenaAdenaRaenaMeenaIrelynnAmenaDelenaAllenaVerenaOlenaSarenaAmeenaEllenaKenaKalenaLeenaArlenaJelenaYelenaAlvenaSenaMena

Names with a curve like Irena

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

LovinaAntoninaNanaAmadaVashtiVeniceDaiseyPhebeLadyCelestinaCleopatraAra

Sibling names for Irena

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 Irena

Top names of 2024, Irena's peak yearThe 2020s in fullOther names that peaked in 1882Girls' names starting with ICzech Girl NamesUncommon Polish Girl Names