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Minna

#4,721 in 2025Girls' name

Will + helmet, through Wilhelmina

Minna has been given to 3,151 babies in the U.S. since 1880. In 2025 it ranked #4,721 of 17,293 girls’ names in use. Its peak year was 1916, with 54 recorded.

Babies named Minna, 2025

1 in 114,000

Minna over time, 1880–2025

Girls
020406018801900192019401960198020002020

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Minna: meaning, origin, and history

Will + helmet, through Wilhelmina

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Minna means

Minna belongs to the name family reached through Minna → Minna → Wilhelmina → Wilhelm → *Wiljahelmaz. Its meaning is “will + helmet”.

Origin, language, and formation

Minna is used in Danish, Estonian, Faroese, Finnish and German.

Minna comes through German Minna.

Related names and everyday forms

Related names include Vilhelmiina, Wilhelmina, Minna, Wilhelm and *Wiljahelmaz.

Pronunciation and spelling

In Finnish, Minna is pronounced /ˈminːɑ/.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 3,151 girls were recorded with the name Minna between 1880 and 2025. Its highest annual count was 54 in 1916; its best national rank was #369 in 1889.

Over 5 years its rank fell, from #4,330 in 2020 to #4,721 in 2025. Over 10 years its rank fell, from #4,368 in 2015 to #4,721 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 Minna?

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

Among all babies, 2025
1 in 114,000
29 of 3,315,165 births
Among girls only
1 in 55,400
<0.01% of girls
Rank, 2025
#4,721
of 17,293 girls’ names in use
Coin-flip room size
79,239 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Minna 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 79,239 children born in 2025 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Minna. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Minnas were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Minna was born before 1935 — so the typical Minna is around 90 today.

Median birth year
1935
About 90 years old
Biggest decade
1910s
13.0% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
22.0%
Spread across generations
Recorded since 1950
1,369
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1910s — 13.0% of all recorded uses (411).

Is Minna 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
+130
Places climbed
Rank vs 5 years ago
−391
Places dropped
Rank vs 10 years ago
−353
Places dropped
Births vs 10 years ago
0.88×
Fewer babies than then
Share of its own peak
53.7%
Peak was 1916 (54)
Years since peak
109
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Shifting
23.3% average annual change
Best rank ever
#369
1889

Spellings of Minna

Minna is not the most common spelling — Linda is, with 24.9% against Minna's 0.05%.

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 Minna is used

Across 1910–2025, Minna was most concentrated in New York — about 1 in 33,333 girls, against 1 in 126,044 across all states with data. It was least common in Virginia (1 in —).

03 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1New York1 in 33,333
  2. 2California1 in 100,000
  3. 3Illinois1 in —
  4. 4Massachusetts1 in —
  5. 5Pennsylvania1 in —
  6. 6Texas1 in —
  7. 7Virginia1 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. Minna has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Minna around the world

Where Minna 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
    1996–2025
    #2,278
    in 2025
  • France
    1900–2024
    #4,782
    in 2024
  • Canada
    2005–2020
    #3,347
    in 2020
  • South Australia
    1975–2013
    #818
    in 2013

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 Minna

People whose public names include Minna, 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.

Minna in other languages

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

MinaNinnaMinttuVilhelmina

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

Minna by the numbers

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

As a girl's name

Rank in 2025
#4,721
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
Down 391
Best rank ever
#369
1889
Peak year
1916
54 that year
First recorded
1880
Last recorded
2025
All-time count
3,151
Count in 2025
29

Names similar to Minna

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

MinhaLennaMindiLannaVannaJonnaLynnaMinkaMindaRennaBrynnaCiennaCiannaHennaKeannaMintaAlonnaDeonnaLyannaDionnaRiannaTionnaTyannaIanna

Names with a curve like Minna

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

MallieLibbieLelahPhebeAraAdeliaLillaGoldaSigneSenaNevadaLovina

Sibling names for Minna

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 Minna

Top names of 1916, Minna's peak yearThe 1910s in fullOther names that peaked in 1889Girls' names starting with MUncommon Finnish Girl Names