Edna

Spellings & scripts●

Locally spelled עדנה in IL Israel, IR Iran, ZA South Africa and אדנה in ET Ethiopia.

Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records; ○ marks a model's transliteration. Click a spelling to open its page.

Meaning & origin●

Attested across 3 languages in the etymology graph.

Languages●

Language is read off each record's context, not declared by the bearer; a share is of all records for this spelling.

Other names spelled this way◐

Edna is also recorded as 5 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

• English given name1.6M records spelled Edna16 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in United States, Brazil, United Kingdom, Philippines

  Languages: English, German, Danish

  Also written Ednà, Édna

• a separate given name30K records spelled Edna3 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Italy

  Also written Edná, Édna

• French given name18K records spelled Edna2 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in France, United States, Philippines, United Kingdom

• Polish given name12K records spelled Edna22 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in United States, Poland, Philippines, Czechia

  Languages: Polish, Russian, Czech

  Also written Эдна, Єдна, Една, Ëdnä

• Italian given name3.6K records spelled Edna4 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in United States, United Kingdom, San Marino, Philippines

  Also written Ėdnä, Édna, Edná

63 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses●

Edna 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.

• 2 In Ireland this has been used as an Anglicized form of pEithne. The name occurs in the apocryphal Book of Tobit, where it is the name of the mother of Sarah and stepmother of Tobias. This is said to be from Hebrew ‘ednah ‘pleasure’, ‘delight’, and if so it is connected with the name of the Garden of jEden. The earliest known uses of the given name in

  as a name·A concise dictionary of first names

• In Swedish, Edna är ett bibliskt namn av hebreiskt ursprung, samhörigt med → Adina. Det började användas i Storbritannien på 1700-talet. Det kan också vara en engelsk form av ett iriskt-gäliskt Ethna, Eithne, som är en femininform till Aidan ’liten eld’. Eithne har också föreslagits innehålla ett ord med betydelsen ’kärna’, använt som term för (lov)prisande i gammal irisk diktning.

  as a name·Förnamn i Sverige. Kortfattat namnlexikon

• In French, Du nom hébraïque Eden, « paradis ».

  as a name·Le grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)

• In English, Scottish; feminine form of Edmund

  as a name·Baby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…

• In German, gegen Ende des 19. Jh.s aus dem Eng­ lischen entlehnter weibl. Vom., englische

  as a name·DUDEN 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.

Over time●

US SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) — 146 years between 1880–2025. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.

Notable people with this name●

• Edna May Oliverb. 1883USAmerican actress (1883–1942)
• Edna Ferberb. 1885USAmerican novelist, short story writer and playwright (1885–1968)
• Edna St. Vincent Millayb. 1892USAmerican poet (1892–1950)
• Edna Parkerb. 1893USAmerican supercentenarian (1893–2008)
• Edna Murphyb. 1899USactress (1899-1974)
• Edna Bestb. 1900GBBritish actress (1900-1974)
• Edna Anhaltb. 1914USscreenwriter (1914–1987)
• Edna O'Brienb. 1930IEIrish writer (1930–2024)
• Edna Adan Ismailb. 1937GBSomaliland politician
• Donna Shalalab. 1941USnot in their usual name18th United States Secretary of Health and Human Services

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●

Register rows as of the 2026-09-12 data build · 968 rows in the corpus for this spelling.

Frequently asked questions

How common is the name Edna?

We estimate roughly 253 thousand people bear Edna (counting its spellings and scripts) across 6 countries in our records.

In which country does Edna have the most bearers?

We estimate about 183 thousand people bear Edna in Brazil, more than in any other country in our records, where it is most often spelled edna.

Where is Edna most common?

Edna is densest in Brazil, where the national register counts about 1 in 1.2 thousand people carrying it.

How common is Edna compared with other names?

In Brazil, Edna is the 166th most common given name of 536,280 given names recorded there.

Is Edna a male or female name?

Edna 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 Edna mean?

Recorded meaning: Biblical Hebrew, possibly from ʿēdnāh ‘delight, pleasure’