Birna
given name · Icelandic · Latin script
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Birna is a given name, with more bearers in Iceland than in any other country. It appears chiefly in Icelandic and Spanish, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: female bear, she-bear.
- ISIceland1 in 187◐
- DKDenmark1 in 72K
- SESweden1 in 155K
carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.
- ≈2.0K ●
- Sources
- 3 ●
- 1 in 187 ◐
across 5 countries
0 records
Derived
Iceland
Meaning & origin●
female bear, she-bear
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world●
Sorted by bearers counted by national registers, records where none counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| IS Iceland | 1,875 | — | 1 in 187 | 1.9K | — | — |
| IN India | 89 | 0 rec. | — | — | Birna | 1 |
| DK Denmark | 82 | — | 1 in 72K | 82 | — | — |
| SE Sweden | 66 | 0 rec. | 1 in 155K | 66 | — | 1 |
| US United States | 17 | 0 rec. | — | — | Birna | 3 |
| NL Netherlands | 5 | — | 1 in 3.5M | 5 | — | — |
| CR Costa Rica | 2 | — | 1 in 2.5M | 2 | — | — |
| NO Norway | — | 0 rec. | — | 76 | — | 1 |
| PL Poland | — | — | — | 66 | — | — |
| FO Faroe Islands | — | 0 rec. | — | 47 | — | 1 |
| FI Finland | — | — | — | 25 | — | — |
| ES Spain | — | — | — | 6 | — | — |
Roughly 1.9K people in Iceland bear this name (about 1 in 187). Estimates project the name's share of our records onto national population, so each is only as good as the record base beside it — the Basis column gives that base; rows marked △ rest on fewer records than the estimate itself and are order-of-magnitude at best.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table. How that works.
Languages●
- Icelandic6K74%
- Spanish5126%
- English4546%
- Danish3705%
- Hindi1181%
Show as table
| Name | Records | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Icelandic | 5,967 | 74% |
| Spanish | 512 | 6% |
| English | 454 | 6% |
| Danish | 370 | 5% |
| Hindi | 118 | 1% |
Language is read off each record's context, not declared by the bearer; a share is of all records for this spelling.
Other recorded senses●
Birna is also recorded in 2 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In csb, synonym of żarówka (“light bulb”)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In non, she-bear, female bear
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.
Over time●
Show as table
| Year | records |
|---|---|
| 1999 | 25 |
| 2000 | 24 |
| 2001 | 22 |
| 2002 | 21 |
| 2003 | 21 |
| 2004 | 23 |
| 2005 | 22 |
| 2006 | 24 |
| 2007 | 24 |
| 2008 | 25 |
| 2009 | 27 |
| 2010 | 30 |
| 2011 | 30 |
| 2012 | 32 |
| 2013 | 30 |
| 2014 | 32 |
| 2015 | 33 |
| 2016 | 34 |
| 2017 | 32 |
| 2018 | 31 |
| 2019 | 28 |
| 2020 | 31 |
SE SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) — 22 years between 1999–2020. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.
Notable people with this name●
- Birna Rørslettb. 1946NONorwegian photographer
- Birna Arnbjörnsdóttirb. 1952ISIcelandic linguist
- Unnur Birna Karlsdóttirb. 1964ISIcelandic historian and writer
- Hanna Birna Kristjánsdóttirb. 1966ISIcelandic politician
- Birna Petersenb. 1970ISIcelandic badminton player
- Birna Guðbjartsdóttirb. 1970ISbadminton player
- Birna Björnsdottirb. 1973ISIcelandic cyclist
- Birna Valgarðsdóttirb. 1976ISIcelandic basketball player (born 1976)
- M.B. van Riemsdijkb. 1978NLnot in their usual namePh.D. Universiteit Utrecht 2006
- Birna Berg Haraldsdóttirb. 1993IShandball player
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).
Evidence●
Attested in 23 sources across 15 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| IS Iceland | Þjóðskrá Íslands — Name frequencies (NafnTíðni, registry) | 2026 | 1.9K | #48 |
| IS Iceland | Hagstofa — population register names 2023 | 2023 | 886 | #41 |
| IS Iceland | Hagstofa Íslands — Given-name frequency by population (2005) | 2005 | 867 | #39 |
| DK Denmark | Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts) | — | 82 | #1,842 |
| NO Norway | SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population) | — | 76 | #9,157 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames) | 2026 | 66 | — |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names) | — | 66 | #41,040 |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 66 | #11,265 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames) | 2026 | 58 | — |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names) | — | 58 | #44,612 |
| FO Faroe Islands | Hagstova Føroya — Given names, living population (PX-Web, 2024) | — | 47 | — |
| SE Sweden | SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) | 2016 | 34 | — |
Reference works 2
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-09-12 data build · 88 rows in the corpus for this spelling.
Frequently asked questions
- How common is the name Birna?
- We estimate roughly 2.0 thousand people bear Birna (counting its spellings and scripts) across 5 countries in our records.
- In which country does Birna have the most bearers?
- We estimate about 1.9 thousand people bear Birna in Iceland, more than in any other country in our records.
- Where is Birna most common?
- Birna is densest in Iceland, where the national register counts about 1 in 187 people carrying it.
- Is Birna a male or female name?
- Birna 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.
- What does the name Birna mean?
- Recorded meaning: female bear, she-bear
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/birnaThe same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. Rate-limited for casual use. Bulk access and licensing.
About this data
Data snapshot . Figures are rebuilt periodically and will change.
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, “Birna”. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.