Alannah
- Pronunciation
- [A-la-nnah]
- Gender
- Female
- Meaning
- Dear Child.
- Origin
- Irish
About the Name Alannah
Alannah is an Irish name traditionally read as "dear child," growing out of the affectionate Irish endearment a leanbh ("O child"), which English speakers gradually heard and respelled as a given name. The result is a soft, lyrical name that carries genuine warmth and a clear Gaelic lilt while remaining easy for English speakers to say and spell. It belongs to the family of gentle, vowel-rich Irish names that have steadily gained admirers among parents looking for something melodic, heritage-rooted, and a little out of the ordinary.
One well-known bearer is Canadian rock-and-pop singer-songwriter Alannah Myles (born 1958), whose 1989 single "Black Velvet" became one of the American rock-pop crossover hits of the late 1980s and helped fix the spelling in the public ear. Her success introduced the name to a wide North American audience and gave it a touch of cool, bluesy glamour that lingers around it still.
The name reached a small but real audience in the United States. It first entered the US Social Security top-1000 in 2007, peaked in 2015 at rank #762, and held a place through 2019, when it sat at #993. Across its run it was given to roughly 3,830 girls who reached the top-1000 in their birth years, marking it as a gentle, never-mainstream choice rather than a passing fad. For parents today, Alannah offers a romantic, three-syllable alternative to the more familiar Alana and Lana, with a tender meaning built right into its sound.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Alannah
US Popularity History (2007–2019)
Annual US births named Alannah by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2015 with 370 girls named Alannah (girl rank #762 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2019, ranked #993 for girls (260 US births). That's 231 places below its 2015 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 Alannah 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 Alannah the strongest states are Massachusetts, Connecticut, Pennsylvania.
Strongest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Massachusetts | #448 | 49 |
| 2 | Connecticut | #478 | 17 |
| 3 | Pennsylvania | #639 | 82 |
| 4 | Indiana | #720 | 52 |
| 5 | Alabama | #726 | 18 |
| 6 | Michigan | #739 | 43 |
| 7 | Tennessee | #743 | 27 |
| 8 | Illinois | #794 | 39 |
| 9 | Maryland | #798 | 24 |
| 10 | Florida | #804 | 144 |
Weakest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Texas | #1,107 | 134 |
| 2 | New York | #1,095 | 48 |
| 3 | California | #1,018 | 158 |
| 4 | Ohio | #944 | 42 |
| 5 | Missouri | #873 | 24 |
| 6 | New Jersey | #810 | 44 |
| 7 | North Carolina | #808 | 56 |
| 8 | Florida | #804 | 144 |
| 9 | Maryland | #798 | 24 |
| 10 | Illinois | #794 | 39 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Alannah in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Famous People Named Alannah
1 notable figure from history and culture who share the name Alannah.
- Alannah Myles — Rock Singer (1958)
Looking for names like Alannah?
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 Alannah to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Alannah against today's most popular girls-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).