Mina
- Pronunciation
- [Mi-na]
- Gender
- Female
- Meaning
- Chamoru Spanish, "Mine."
- Origin
- Chamoru
About the Name Mina
Mina has multiple proposed origins. The most credible Germanic line connects Mina to a short form of Wilhelmina (the feminine of Wilhelm/William, see separate entry). A separate Persian line connects Mina to mīnā meaning "enamel" or "glaze" — used continuously in Persian-Indian decorative art. A third Japanese line connects Mina to mina meaning "south." A fourth Chamoru-Spanish line connects Mina to the Spanish/Chamoru word for "mine" (as in the possessive pronoun).
Notable bearers include the iconic Bram Stoker character Mina Harker of Dracula 1897 (the iconic Victorian Gothic-novel heroine — one of the foundational figures of late-19th-century English Gothic literature); contemporary Korean-American singer Mina (Sharon Myung-rim Kim); American basketball player Mina Banner; and the contemporary fictional Mina of various contemporary novels.
Mina's American climb is recent: the name climbed from outside the US top 1000 in 2010 to the US top 300 girls' rank by 2018 and the top 300 since. The name has been driven primarily by Persian-American, Indian-American, and Korean-American naming. The name's appeal sits in three contemporary American naming preferences: the multi-cultural etymological flexibility (Germanic/Persian/Japanese/Chamoru), the strong Mina Harker Victorian Gothic literary cultural anchor, and the compact two-syllable -ina ending family. Two firm syllables, soft consonants, and tonal warmth distinctive to multi-cultural names. The name reads as both classical-multi-cultural and contemporary American. Common nicknames are scarce since the name is already short — Min (the dominant short form, casual and warm) and the rare Mini each occasionally appear; the longer formal Wilhelmina, Yasmina, or Jasmina are sometimes used as Mina's official-document version. International forms include Mina (essentially identical across Persian/Italian/Spanish/Korean/Japanese), Wilhelmina (German), and the broader related Mina/Wilhelmina family.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Mina
US Popularity History (2002–2025)
Annual US births named Mina by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2023 with 512 girls named Mina (girl rank #586 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #597 for girls (491 US births). That's 11 places below its 2023 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 Mina 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 Mina the strongest states are Hawaii, Washington, California.
Strongest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Hawaii | #219 | 26 |
| 2 | Washington | #396 | 171 |
| 3 | California | #474 | 705 |
| 4 | Connecticut | #500 | 25 |
| 5 | Utah | #505 | 70 |
| 6 | Oregon | #506 | 55 |
| 7 | Minnesota | #507 | 105 |
| 8 | New York | #525 | 308 |
| 9 | Nevada | #527 | 23 |
| 10 | Massachusetts | #552 | 101 |
Weakest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tennessee | #949 | 44 |
| 2 | Florida | #831 | 156 |
| 3 | North Carolina | #810 | 94 |
| 4 | South Carolina | #808 | 17 |
| 5 | Arizona | #775 | 65 |
| 6 | Ohio | #745 | 109 |
| 7 | Texas | #742 | 338 |
| 8 | Indiana | #732 | 56 |
| 9 | Georgia | #731 | 115 |
| 10 | Wisconsin | #717 | 53 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Mina in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Variant Forms
Looking for names like Mina?
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 Mina to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Mina against today's most popular girls-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).
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