Sanja

Spellings & scripts●

Locally spelled 삼자 in KR South Korea.

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 19 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◐

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

• Hindi given name13K records spelled Sanja12 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in India, United States, Serbia, Pakistan

  Languages: Hindi, Bangla, Urdu

  Also written Saja, Saza, Saaja, সাজা

• a separate given name3.0K records spelled Sanja3 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in India, United States, Serbia, Bosnia & Herzegovina

  Also written Sañjā, Sanjā

• Italian given name522 records spelled Sanja2 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in Serbia, Italy, United States, North Macedonia

  Also written Shanya

39 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●

Sanja is also recorded in 3 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

• In German, weibl. Vom., russische Kurzform ver­ schiedener Vornamen, vor allem von

  as a name·DUDEN Lexikon der Vornamen

• In umb, vomit. *Sa7iya, v. a., pull wool ; pick to pieces; adj., hot

  as a word·Vocabulary of the Umbundu Language

• In dmn-dam, town

  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●

IN naampy — India given names from state electoral rolls (in-rolls) — 84 years between 1922–2015. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.

Notable people with this name●

• Sanja Ivekovićb. 1949HRCroatian visual artist, designer and activist (born 1949)
• Sanja Ožegovićb. 1959HROlympic medalist in basketball
• Sanja Vejnovićb. 1961HRCroatian actress
• Sanja Đorđevićb. 1969RSSerbian singer
• Sanja Mikitišinb. 1973RSSerbian actress
• Sanja Starovićb. 1983BASerbian volleyball player
• Sanja Popovićb. 1984HRFemale volleyball player from Croatia
• Sanja Jovanovićb. 1986HRCroatian swimmer
• Sanja Malagurskib. 1990RSSerbian volleyball player
• Sanja Vučićb. 1993RSpop singer

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 · 537 rows in the corpus for this spelling.

Frequently asked questions

How common is the name Sanja?

We estimate roughly 28 thousand people bear Sanja (counting its spellings and scripts) across 13 countries in our records.

In which country does Sanja have the most bearers?

We estimate about 19 thousand people bear Sanja in Croatia, more than in any other country in our records, where it is most often spelled sanja.

How common is Sanja compared with other names?

In Croatia, Sanja is the 48th most common given name of 13,510 given names recorded there.

Is Sanja a male or female name?

Sanja 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 Sanja mean?

Recorded meaning: Sanja kan vara en smekform till → Alexandra eller en bildning till det sydslaviska verbet sanjati ’att drömma’.