Makenna
- Pronunciation
- [Ma-ke-nna]
- Gender
- Female
- Meaning
- Happiness
- Origin
- African
About the Name Makenna
Makenna is a modern American spelling variant of Mckenna (see separate entry on Mckenna for the Scottish-Irish Gaelic Mac Cionaodha etymology meaning "son of Cionaodh" — the Old Gaelic personal name from cion meaning "love, affection"). The Mak-spelling Makenna is essentially a 21st-century American invention.
The various spellings (Makenna, Mckenna, McKenna, Makena) are tracked separately by SSA and represent the same underlying Scottish surname. The Makenna spelling specifically appeals to parents seeking a more visually distinctive form than the historical Mckenna. The name's transition from surname to American first name accelerated through the 2000s and 2010s.
Makenna has been used predominantly for girls in modern American naming. The name climbed from outside the US top 1000 in 2000 to the US top 300 girls' rank by 2014 and the top 200 since. Notable contemporary bearers include various American actresses and reality-TV personalities. The name's appeal sits in three contemporary American naming preferences: the surname-style sophistication, the popular Mac/Mc-prefix family, and the in-built Scottish-Irish heritage. Three flowing syllables, soft consonants, and tonal versatility across casual and formal registers. The name reads as both classical-Celtic and distinctly contemporary American. Common nicknames Mac, Kenna (the dominant short form), and the rare Mak each carry distinct registers; the alternate spellings Mckenna, Makenna, Mackenna, and Makena (Hawaiian, with overlapping but distinct meaning) have their own SSA tracking. International forms include the original Scottish Gaelic Mac Cionaodha.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Makenna
US Popularity History (2000–2025)
Annual US births named Makenna by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2005 with 1,619 girls named Makenna (girl rank #213 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #593 for girls (495 US births). That's 380 places below its 2005 peak.
Source: US Social Security Administration. Limitations: US birth-certificate data only; names appearing fewer than 5 times in a given year are suppressed for privacy; spelling variants are counted separately. For names that ranked outside the US top 100 before year 2000, only the years they reached the top 100 are shown — the chart may have gaps for less-popular historical names.
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Where in the US Is Makenna Most Popular?
Average girl-name rank within each state across 2016–2025 SSA records. A lower number means the name appears closer to the top of that state's girls-name rankings — a per-capita measure that isn't biased toward large states. For Makenna the strongest states are North Dakota, West Virginia, South Dakota.
Strongest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | North Dakota | #196 | 32 |
| 2 | West Virginia | #224 | 65 |
| 3 | South Dakota | #234 | 21 |
| 4 | Kentucky | #239 | 187 |
| 5 | Indiana | #250 | 274 |
| 6 | Ohio | #256 | 444 |
| 7 | Minnesota | #263 | 216 |
| 8 | Iowa | #276 | 131 |
| 9 | Pennsylvania | #285 | 381 |
| 10 | Nebraska | #290 | 81 |
Weakest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | New Jersey | #660 | 101 |
| 2 | California | #612 | 538 |
| 3 | Texas | #612 | 488 |
| 4 | Arizona | #578 | 120 |
| 5 | New York | #550 | 293 |
| 6 | Illinois | #510 | 230 |
| 7 | Florida | #509 | 331 |
| 8 | Utah | #480 | 69 |
| 9 | Louisiana | #466 | 100 |
| 10 | Maryland | #463 | 125 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Makenna in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Variant Forms
| Name | Meaning | Gender | Origin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Makena | Female | English |
Looking for names like Makenna?
A dedicated page with 60+ related names — spelling variants, rhymes, alliterations, same-origin matches, and shared meaning concepts — lives at its own URL so each kind of similarity gets a deeper treatment than fits here.
Compare Makenna to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Makenna against today's most popular girls-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).