Name Awesome

Ninja

Girls' name

Literal meaning not recorded

Ninja has been given to 19 babies in the U.S. since 1983. 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 1983, with 8 recorded.

Babies named Ninja, 1985

1 in 595,000

Ninja over time, 1880–2025

Girls
0246818801900192019401960198020002020

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Ninja: meaning, origin, and history

Literal meaning not recorded

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Ninja means

Ninja is a given name.

Origin, language, and formation

Ninja is used in Icelandic.

Pronunciation and spelling

In Icelandic, Ninja is pronounced [ˈnɪnja].

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 19 girls were recorded with the name Ninja between 1983 and 1985. Its highest annual count was 8 in 1983; its best national rank was #7,817 in 1983.

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 Ninja?

Ninja had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 1985, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 1985
1 in 595,000
6 of 3,568,740 births
Among girls only
1 in 287,000
<0.01% of girls
Rank, 1985
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
412,278 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Ninja 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 1985 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 412,278 children born in 1985 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Ninja. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Ninjas were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Ninja was born before 1984 — so the typical Ninja is around 41 today.

Median birth year
1984
About 41 years old
Biggest decade
1980s
100.0% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
100.0%
A modern name
Recorded since 1950
19
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1980s — 100.0% of all recorded uses (19).

Is Ninja 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 1983 (8)
Years since peak
42
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
28.7% average annual change
Best rank ever
#7,817
1983

Spellings of Ninja

Ninja is not the most common spelling — Linda is, with 61.9% against Ninja's <0.01%.

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.

Ninja around the world

Where Ninja 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.

  • France
    1991–1991
    #3,255
    in 1991

Popularity data from Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques. INSEE data under Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0.

Ninja 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
#7,817
1983
Peak year
1983
8 that year
First recorded
1983
Last recorded
1985
All-time count
19
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Ninja

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

NinonNintiNinoNingNinevehNinnaNiniveNinethNiniaNincyTunjaSenjaNinelNiniolaSunjaZenjaKenjaMonjaNinahRonjaDanjaVanjaTawnjaNin

Sibling names for Ninja

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 Ninja

Top names of 1983, Ninja's peak yearThe 1980s in fullOther names that peaked in 1983Girls' names starting with N