Anita
given name · Latin script
Meaning: Spanish diminutive of Ana/Anna, from Hebrew Hannah 'grace'
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/əˈnitə/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Anita is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country. In Norway it is the 60th most common given name.
- SESweden1 in 201(measured from records)
- NONorway1 in 380
- DEGermany≈1 in 1K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- United States (measured from records)
- #548 (measured from records)
- 5 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 553 (measured from records)
- 1 in 193 (inferred from the name graph)
164,324 people, 2020
of 15M given names
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Hungary
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
Spanish diminutive of Ana/Anna, from Hebrew Hannah 'grace'.
Sources 1
- Le grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
Attested across 8 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Anita counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | #263 | 164,324 | 1 in 2K | 164K | Anita | 553 |
| PH Philippines | #391 | ≈100,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.1K | — | Anita | 92 |
| DE Germany | #217 | ≈79,000 est. | ≈1 in 1K | — | Anita | 233 |
| NG Nigeria | #734 | ≈60,000 est. | ≈1 in 3.6K | — | Anita | 109 |
| GB United Kingdom | #256 | ≈52,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.3K | — | Anita | 276 |
| SE Sweden | #111 | 50,719 | 1 in 201 | 51K | Anita | 98 |
| HU Hungary | — | 50,711 | 1 in 193 | 51K | — | 6 |
| FI Finland | — | 20,518 | 1 in 272 | 30K | Anita | 48 |
| NO Norway | #60 | 14,382 | 1 in 380 | 52K | Anita | 114 |
| HR Croatia | — | 13,435 | 1 in 315 | 13K | — | 5 |
| LV Latvia | — | 9,033 | 1 in 208 | 9K | — | 48 |
164,324 people counted by Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex, 2020. Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; SSB PxWebApi — Persons/Last names by year (StatBank tables 10501/12891); SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population); Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population); Nyilvántartó — Top-100 given names in population (2020–2025); DVV — Etunimitilasto (Finnish given names register); DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup); DZS — Imena i prezimena (per-token lookup form); PMLP — Personu vārdi (given names in population register). Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Other recorded senses(measured from records)
Anita is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
Originally a Spanish pet form of Ana, the Spanish version of }Anne. It is now widely used in English-speaking countries with little awareness of its Spanish origin. In the 1950s it came to prominence as the name of the Swedish film actress Anita Ekberg (b. 1931).
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
In Swedish, Anita är ursprungligen en spansk och italiensk smekform till Anna. En känd namnbärare är Anita Ekberg (1931–2015), svensk skådespelerska. I den rikssvenska almanackan 9 september och i den finlandssvenska 22 oktober.
as a nameFörnamn i Sverige. Kortfattat namnlexikon
In French, Diminutif d’Anna/Anne, donc « grâce »; forme répandue en Europe.
as a nameDictionnaire généalogique des prénoms
In French, Forme espagnole d’Anne; du hébreu, lié à « grâce ».
as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
In German, weibl. Vom., spanische Koseform von
as a nameDUDEN Lexikon der Vornamen
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Anita Loosb. 1889USAmerican screenwriter, playwright, author, actress and television producer (1888-1981)
- Anita Brooknerb. 1928GBEnglish novelist and art historian (1928–2016)
- Anita Pallenbergb. 1942ITGerman-Italian actress, model and muse of the Rolling Stones
- Anita Pointerb. 1948USAmerican singer-songwriter (1948–2022)
- Anita Borgb. 1949USAmerican computer scientist (1949-2003)
- Anita Hillb. 1956USAmerican law professor; witness in Clarence Thomas controversy
- Anita Anandb. 1967CACanadian politician and professor (born 1967)
- Anita Sarkeesianb. 1983CAAmerican blogger (born 1983)
- Anita Włodarczykb. 1985PLPolish hammer thrower
- Anita Simoncinib. 1999SMSammarinese singer
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
How to address them(machine-generated)
A formal English salutation is built on the surname, so it needs a full name — on its own, a first name only supports the informal form.
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 139 sources across 71 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 164K | #338 |
| NO Norway | SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population) | — | 52K | #48 |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 51K | #74 |
| HU Hungary | Nyilvántartó — Top-100 given names in population (2020–2025) | 2025 | 51K | #22 |
| FI Finland | DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup) | — | 30K | #69 |
| SE Sweden | SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) | 2020 | 25K | — |
| FI Finland | DVV — Etunimitilasto (Finnish given names register) | — | 21K | — |
| NO Norway | SSB PxWebApi — Persons/Last names by year (StatBank tables 10501/12891) | 2025 | 14K | — |
| HR Croatia | DZS — Imena i prezimena (per-token lookup form) | 2021 | 13K | #77 |
| HR Croatia | DZS — Učestalost osobnih imena (Popis 2021) | 2021 | 12K | — |
| LV Latvia | PMLP — Personu vārdi (given names in population register) | — | 9K | — |
| LV Latvia | PMLP — Personvārdu meklētājs (per-name population-register lookup) | — | 9K | #40 |
Reference works 6
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
- Ethiopian name tokens (GitHub lehagere/ethiopian-names, 40/60 condominium list)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Anita mean, and where does it come from?
- Spanish diminutive of Ana/Anna, from Hebrew Hannah 'grace'. Recorded by Le grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education).
- Is Anita a male or female name?
- Anita is a female name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
- In which country does Anita have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 164 thousand people named Anita, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled anita.
- Where is Anita most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Anita is densest in Hungary — about 1 in 193 people — even though United States holds more of our records for it.
- How do you pronounce Anita?
- A machine transcription gives /əˈnitə/ (IPA) for Hindi.
- What are other forms of the name Anita?
- In the etymology graph, Ann, Nancy and Anna are forms of the same name in other languages; Nita and Ankica are recorded short or pet forms; it is recorded as a short form of Ana.
- How common is the name Anita?
- In the United States, the national register counted 164,324 people named Anita in 2020, about 1 in 2.0 thousand residents.
- How common is Anita compared with other names?
- In the United States, Anita is the 263rd most common given name of 2,815,431 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Anita?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/anitaThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Anita” — the 263rd most common given name in United States. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.