Anja
given name · Latin script
Meaning: a female given name from Russian А́ня (Ánja, “Annie”, pet form), equivalent to English Anya
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/anja/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Anja is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Germany than in any other country, where it is the 66th most common given name.
- FIFinland1 in 292(measured from records)
- DEGermany≈1 in 395
- DKDenmark1 in 566
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.
- Germany (inferred from the name graph)
- 5 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 303 (measured from records)
- 1 in 241 (inferred from the name graph)
≈200,000 people, est.
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Slovenia
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
One other spelling is counted as the same name:
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)
a female given name from Russian А́ня (Ánja, “Annie”, pet form), equivalent to English Anya
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested across 8 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Anja 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DE Germany | #66 | ≈200,000 est. | ≈1 in 395 | — | Anja | 262 |
| FI Finland | #414 | 19,106 | 1 in 292 | 38K | Anja | 33 |
| DK Denmark | #124 | 10,370 | 1 in 566 | 10K | Anja | 147 |
| SI Slovenia | #122 | 8,731 | 1 in 241 | 8.8K | Anja | 45 |
| AT Austria | #218 | ≈6,300 est. | ≈1 in 1.4K | 7.4K | Anja | 112 |
| HR Croatia | — | 3,470 | 1 in 1.2K | 4.1K | — | 4 |
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: DVV — Etunimitilasto (Finnish given names register); DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup); Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts); SURS — resident population given names; stat.si Imena rojstva — full name register (per-token frequency + rank); Statistik Austria — STATatlas Vornamen WFS (per-name time series 1984–2024); DZS — Imena i prezimena (per-token lookup form); DZS — Učestalost osobnih imena (Popis 2021). 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)
Anja 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.
In German, a female given name from Russian, popular in the late 20th century
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In German, in Deutschland seit den i94oer-Jahren vorkommender weibl. Vom., russische Form von
as a nameDUDEN Lexikon der Vornamen
In Swedish, Anja är ursprungligen en slavisk smekform till → Anna. En känd namnbärare är Anja Pärson (f. 1981), svensk alpin skidåkare. I den finlandssvenska almanackan 22 oktober.
as a nameFörnamn i Sverige. Kortfattat namnlexikon
In sqj-pro, to breathe
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In mij, water
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
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)
- Armi Aavikkob. 1958FInot in their usual nameFinnish beauty queen and singer (1958–2002)
- Anja Jaenickeb. 1963DEGerman actress
- Anja Andersenb. 1969DKDanish handball player
- Anja Karliczekb. 1971DEGerman politician
- Anja Pärsonb. 1981SESwedish female alpine skier
- Anja Rubikb. 1983PLPolish model
- Anja Mittagb. 1985DEGerman footballer
- Anja Nissenb. 1995AUDanish-Australian pop singer
- Anya Taylor-Joyb. 1996USnot in their usual nameactress (born 1996)
- Anya Chalotrab. 1996GBnot in their usual nameBritish actress
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 83 sources across 43 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FI Finland | DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup) | — | 38K | #39 |
| FI Finland | DVV — Etunimitilasto (Finnish given names register) | — | 19K | — |
| DK Denmark | Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts) | — | 10K | #71 |
| SI Slovenia | stat.si Imena rojstva — full name register (per-token frequency + rank) | — | 8.8K | #39 |
| SI Slovenia | SURS — resident population given names | 2025 | 8.7K | #14 |
| AT Austria | Statistik Austria — STATatlas Vornamen WFS (per-name time series 1984–2024) | 2024 | 7.4K | #117 |
| HR Croatia | DZS — Učestalost osobnih imena (Popis 2021) | 2021 | 4.1K | — |
| HR Croatia | DZS — Imena i prezimena (per-token lookup form) | 2021 | 3.5K | #264 |
| DK Denmark | Danmarks Statistik — Navne til nyfødte (1985–present) | 1993 | 158 | #45 |
| AT Austria | Statistik Austria — Vornamen der Geborenen (1984–present) | 2024 | 57 | #118 |
| FI Finland | DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup) | — | 20 | #19,867 |
| SI Slovenia | SURS — Najpogostejša imena in priimki (population register) | 2024 | 9 | — |
Reference works 4
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- 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
- How do you pronounce Anja?
- A machine transcription gives /anja/ (IPA) for German.
- What does the name Anja mean, and where does it come from?
- a female given name from Russian А́ня (Ánja, “Annie”, pet form), equivalent to English Anya Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- Is Anja a male or female name?
- Anja 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 Anja have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 203 thousand people named Anja in Germany, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled anja.
- Where is Anja most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Anja is densest in Slovenia — about 1 in 241 people — even though Germany holds more of our records for it.
- What are other forms of the name Anja?
- In the etymology graph, Ana, Ann and Nancy are forms of the same name in other languages.
- How common is the name Anja?
- In Finland, the national register counted 19,106 people named Anja, about 1 in 292 residents.
- How common is Anja compared with other names?
- In Germany, Anja is the 66th most common given name of 156,202 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Anja?
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/anjaThe 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, “Anja” — the 66th most common given name in Germany. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.