Kana
given name · Latin script
Meaning: reduced form of Balkana, a regional name for a woman from the Balkans
A female name· listed as female by the registers that count names by sex
(measured from records)Officially recorded in 35 countries · latest register: Census Bureau, 2020
Kana is a female given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.
- SKSlovakia≈1 in 120K(inferred from the name graph)
- BEBelgium≈1 in 340K
- CHSwitzerland≈1 in 380K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than Kana itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. Countries with no figure are shown too: flat where a national register lists the name without counting it, hatched where only our records hold it. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- United States (measured from records)
- Record sources
- 97 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 42K (inferred from the name graph)
3,138 named Kin, 2020
corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling
strongest: highest-authority source
Hong Kong, est.
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)reduced form of Balkana, a regional name for a woman from the Balkans.
Cited for this meaning 1
- Dictionary of American Family Names
Attested across 4 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world
(measured from records)Kana 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 | 3,138as Kin | 1 in 106K | 3.2K | Kana | 97 |
| ID Indonesia | ≈2,800 est. | ≈1 in 96K | listed | Kana | 78 |
| NG Nigeria | ≈910 est. | ≈1 in 236K | listed | Kana | 19 |
| MY Malaysia | ≈340 est. | ≈1 in 96K | — | Kana | 19 |
| VN Vietnam | ≈220 est. | ≈1 in 453K | — | Kana | 20 |
| SE Sweden | 196as Kani | 1 in 52K | 196 | — | 6 |
| HK Hong Kong | ≈180 est. | ≈1 in 42K | — | Kana | 8 |
| SI Slovenia | 112as Kan | 1 in 19K | 126 | — | — |
| ES Spain | 35 | 1 in 1.4M | 59 | — | 2 |
3,138 people counted by Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex, 2020, counting the spelling kin. 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; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population); SURS — resident population given names; stat.si Imena rojstva — full name register (per-token frequency + rank); INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos); INE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal). 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)Kana 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 Japanese, Rōmaji transcription of かな
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Ganga (N)
as a nameSunama Sarit (Hindi) Ten Thousand Sanskrit Names
Small child.
as a nameThe African book of names
Poderoso
as a name25,000 nombres de bebé. La mejor guía para escoger el nombre adecuado
In xgn-pro, section of yurt lattice wall, wall
as a wordStarLing Tower of Babel etymological databases (Starostin et al.)
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)- Kana Uedab. 1980JPJapanese voice actress
- Kana Asumib. 1983JPJapanese voice actress and singer
- Kana Tsugiharab. 1984JPJapanese actor-model
- Kana Yūkib. 1987JPJapanese voice actress
- Kana Kurashinab. 1987JPJapanese actress
- Kana Akutsub. 1987JPJapanese voice actress
- Kana Nishinob. 1989JPJapanese singer
- Kana Hanazawab. 1989JPJapanese voice actress
- Kana Morisawab. 1992JPJapanese AV idol
- Kana Ichinoseb. 1996JPJapanese voice 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)66 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 35 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 692 | #35,096 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 604 | #35,288 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 561 | #39,212 |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 27 | #20,305 |
| ES Spain | INE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal) | — | 23 | #76,782 |
| ES Spain | INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos) | — | 23 | #75,692 |
Reference works 7
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikipedia surname 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 Kana mean, and where does it come from?
- reduced form of Balkana, a regional name for a woman from the Balkans. Recorded by Dictionary of American Family Names.
- Is Kana a male or female name?
- Kana is a female name. National registers that list it by sex list it as female: United States (Census Bureau, 2020).
- In which country does Kana have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 3.1 thousand people named Kin, more than in any other country we hold.
- How common is the name Kana?
- In Spain, the national register counted 35 people named Kana, about 1 in 1.4 million residents.
What do you want to know about Kana?
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/kanaThe 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, “Kana”. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.