Ioana

Spellings & scripts●

Locally spelled Joana in PL Poland, PH Philippines, HR Croatia, Yoana in BG Bulgaria, NO Norway, Іоана in UA Ukraine and Иоана in RU Russia.

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

No verified etymology recorded for this name yet — the entries below are drawn from usage statistics and the name graph.

Attested across 24 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◐

Ioana is also recorded as 3 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

• Romanian given name73K records spelled Ioana14 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in Romania, Spain, United States, Moldova

  Also written Íoana, Ioană, Ìoana, Iöana, Iòana

• Spanish given name34K records spelled Ioana6 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in Spain, Romania, Argentina, Brazil

  Languages: Spanish, Portuguese

  Also written Iöana, Íoáná, Ioąną, Ioaña

• a separate given name1.6K records spelled Ioana2 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in Romania, United States, United Kingdom, Netherlands

  Also written Ĭoana

38 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●

Ioana is also recorded in one other lexicon, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

• In Romanian, a female given name from Hebrew, equivalent to English Joan

  as a word·kaikki.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●

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●

• Zizi Lambrinob. 1898ROnot in their usual namefirst wife of King Carol II of Romania (1898–1953)
• Ioana Bulcăb. 1936RORomanian actress
• Angela Simileab. 1946ROnot in their usual nameRomanian singer
• Ioana Olteanub. 1966RORomanian rower
• Ioana Florab. 1975RORomanian actress
• Ioana Dumitriub. 1976RORomanian-American mathematician
• Ioana Mihăilăb. 1980RORomanian politician, Health Minister in 2021
• Alexandra Stanb. 1989ROnot in their usual nameRomanian singer
• Ioana Raluca Olarub. 1989RORomanian tennis player
• Ioana Vrinceanub. 1994RORomanian rower

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 · 189 rows in the corpus for this spelling.

Frequently asked questions

How common is the name Ioana?

We estimate roughly 667 thousand people bear Ioana (counting its spellings and scripts) across 15 countries in our records.

In which country does Ioana have the most bearers?

We estimate about 391 thousand people bear Ioana in Romania, more than in any other country in our records, where it is most often spelled ioana.

Where is Ioana most common?

Ioana is densest in Romania, where the national register counts about 1 in 54 people carrying it.

How common is Ioana compared with other names?

In Romania, Ioana is the 7th most common given name of 29,954 given names recorded there.

Is Ioana a male or female name?

Ioana 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.