Kana

given name · Hindi · Latin script

Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise

Kana is a given name, most frequently recorded in India. It appears chiefly in Hindi and Japanese, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: reduced form of Balkana, a regional name for a woman from the Balkans.

rarermore common
  • INIndia1 in 24K◐
  • SISlovenia1 in 19K
  • SESweden1 in 52K

carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.

≈2.9K ●

across 10 countries

Sources
85 ●

89K records

Official registry-verified

1 in 19K ◐

Slovenia

Spellings & scripts●

Locally spelled Kanas in SE Sweden and Kan in CA Canada.

Meaning & origin●

reduced form of Balkana, a regional name for a woman from the Balkans.

Sources 1

  • Dictionary of American Family Names

Attested across 5 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world●

Sorted by bearers counted by national registers, records where none counts.

Where Kana is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
IN India134,45685K rec.—8.3KKana74
US United States2,2551.4K rec.1 in 148K3.2KKana85
ID Indonesia746263 rec.—listedKana73
TW Taiwan27913 rec.——Kana15
BR Brazil211—1 in 1M2.1K——
SE Sweden196△10 rec.1 in 52K196Kanas4
PE Peru180327 rec.——Kana13
MY Malaysia180258 rec.——Kana18
KE Kenya15789 rec.——Kana12
NG Nigeria152211 rec.—listedKana18
VN Vietnam14294 rec.——Kana19
SI Slovenia112—1 in 19K126——

Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table. How that works.

Languages●

  • Hindi108K47%
  • Japanese61K26%
  • English10K4%
  • 10K4%
  • Khmer7K3%
Show as table
Languages in which the name is recorded
NameRecordsNote
Hindi108,17547%
Japanese61,09926%
English10,3684%
10,1024%
Khmer6,9853%

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◐

Kana is also recorded as 7 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Japanese given name66K records spelled Kana3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Japan, India, United States, Canada

    Also written Ka-Na, Känä

  • English given name21K records spelled Kana31 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, India, Netherlands, Australia

    Languages: English, Dutch, Western Frisian

    Also written Kyana, Ky'Ana, K'Yana, K-Yana, K’Ana

  • Spanish given name14K records spelled Kana11 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Peru, India, Brazil, United States

    Languages: Spanish, Portuguese

    Also written K'Ana, Kaña, Kanã, Kaná, Káňa

  • a separate given name11K records spelled Kana5 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in India, United States, Ethiopia, United Kingdom

    Also written Kanā, Kāna, Kaňa, Káňa

  • Czech surname4.9K records spelled Kana21 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Czechia, Slovakia, India, United States

    Languages: Czech, Slovak

    Also written Kaňa, Káňa, Čaňa, Čana, Cana

  • Assamese surname2.6K records spelled Kana9 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in India, Bangladesh, Peru, United Kingdom

    Languages: Assamese, Hindi, Bangla

    Also written Kaanu, କାନୁ, କାନି

  • Turkish given name1.9K records spelled Kana3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in India, Türkiye, Kyrgyzstan, United States

    Languages: Turkish, Azerbaijani

    Also written Känä

49 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●

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.

Over time●

02505007501K19201940196019802000954 · 1961

Show as table
Kana in naampy — India given names from state electoral rolls (in-rolls), India, 1913–2014
Yearrecords
19132
19151
19171
19181
19197
19208
192128
192210
192316
192415
192526
192668
192730
192834
192974
193073
1931166
193293
193393
1934129
1935133
1936268
1937153
1938164
1939283
1940247
1941497
1942235
1943296
1944340
1945353
1946599
1947332
1948287
1949515
1950416
1951782
1952397
1953492
1954529
1955539
1956901
1957462
1958520
1959772
1960507
1961954
1962530
1963686
1964615
1965640
1966899
1967621
1968574
1969757
1970658
1971858
1972611
1973623
1974347
1975328
1976329
1977223
1978242
1979303
1980315
1981430
1982393
1983381
1984246
1985226
1986202
1987233
1988245
1989263
1990207
1991216
1992227
1993213
1994260
1995221
1996176
1997218
1998174
20078
20091
20101
20111
20122
20132
20142

IN naampy — India given names from state electoral rolls (in-rolls) — 91 years between 1913–2014. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.

Notable people with this name●

198019902000Kana Ueda, b. 1980Kana Asumi, b. 1983Kana Tsugihara, b. 1984Kana Yūki, b. 1987Kana Kurashina, b. 1987Kana Akutsu, b. 1987Kana Nishino, b. 1989Kana Hanazawa, b. 1989Kana Morisawa, b. 1992Kana Ichinose, b. 1996

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 64 sources across 35 countries.

Official registers attesting Kana
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex20201.2K#10,071
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20202020692#35,096
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20002000604#35,288
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20102010561#39,212
IN IndiaInstate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls—172#19,685
IN IndiaInstate — India surnames by state (real counts) from electoral rolls—156#16,769
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex2020151#10,071
BR BrazilIBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror)202296—
BR BrazilIBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname)—70#42,522
FI FinlandDVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup)—56#25,554
NO NorwaySSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population)—52#11,712
NL NetherlandsCBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007)200751#30,332

Reference works 5

  • 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)

These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.

Register rows as of the 2026-09-12 data build · 368 rows in the corpus for this spelling.

Frequently asked questions

How common is the name Kana?
We estimate roughly 2.9 thousand people bear Kana (counting its spellings and scripts) across 10 countries in our records.
In which country does Kana have the most bearers?
Kana is most frequently recorded in India, where it is most often spelled kana.
Where is Kana most common?
Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Kana is densest in Slovenia — about 1 in 19 thousand people — even though India holds more of our records for it.
Is Kana a male or female name?
Kana is recorded for both men and women. We don't publish a percentage split: a record's gender belongs to the person and is attached to every given name on that record, so names in cultures where a name string also carries a parent's or spouse's given name pick up large cross-gender counts.
What does the name Kana mean?
Recorded meaning: reduced form of Balkana, a regional name for a woman from the Balkans.
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/kana

The 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

● measured from records◐ inferred from the name graph○ machine-generated

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, “Kana”. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.

See how Kana parses inside a full name →