9BabyNames Baby names with meanings & US popularity data

Alina

Pronunciation
[A-li-na]
Gender
Female
Meaning
Fair
Origin
Celtic

About the Name Alina

Alina has multiple proposed origins. The most credible direct etymology connects Alina to the Slavic short form of Adelina (a feminine form of the Germanic Adel, see Adelaide and Adeline). A separate path derives Alina from the Arabic 'alina meaning "high," "lofty," or "noble." A third reading connects Alina to the Slavic Yelena (the Slavic form of Helen, meaning "shining").

Alina has been used continuously in Slavic, Russian, Romanian, and Italian naming traditions for centuries. The contemporary American Alina surge is part of the broader 21st-century resurgence in Eastern European girls' names. Notable bearers include Romanian-American gymnast Alina Lăcătuș, Russian rhythmic-gymnastics champion Alina Kabaeva (2004 Olympic gold medalist, married to Vladimir Putin's daughter Maria), and contemporary Spanish-American actress Alina Rae.

Alina's American climb has been substantial: the name climbed from outside the US top 500 in 2000 to the US top 200 girls' rank by 2014 and the top 200 since. The name's appeal is its layered cross-cultural elegance — Slavic-Germanic-Arabic etymological possibilities, three soft syllables, and tonal warmth distinctive across multiple linguistic contexts. The name reads as both classically European and contemporary in American naming. Common nicknames Lia, Lina, Allie, and the rare Lin each carry distinct registers; the alternate spellings Aline (more French) and Alyna have their own SSA tracking. International forms include Alina (Italian/Spanish/Russian/Polish, identical), Aline (French), Alena (Czech/Slovak), and the related Adelina family.

Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.

Quick Facts About Alina

569
Celtic baby names in our dictionary
205
Celtic female names
488
5-letter A-names in our dictionary
1,183
A-female names total
2000–2025
years of US SSA records (26 total)
37,329
total US births named Alina (all years)

US Popularity History (2000–2025)

📈 Rising: Alina climbed 40 places in the US girls ranking over the last 5 years (#170 in 2020 → #130 in 2025).

Annual US births named Alina by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2025 with 2,204 girls named Alina (girl rank #130 that year).

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.

Where in the US Is Alina 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 Alina the strongest states are California, Hawaii, Nevada.

Strongest girls-name states

# State Avg rank Births
1 California #62 4,327
2 Hawaii #90 88
3 Nevada #98 233
4 Arizona #119 485
5 Illinois #122 767
6 New York #122 1,170
7 Texas #124 2,190
8 Rhode Island #126 59
9 Washington #135 457
10 New Mexico #138 109

Weakest girls-name states

# State Avg rank Births
1 Alabama #508 78
2 Minnesota #487 101
3 Mississippi #483 17
4 Kentucky #463 85
5 Louisiana #442 104
6 Oklahoma #417 92
7 Tennessee #383 186
8 Missouri #382 150
9 Ohio #379 275
10 Arkansas #377 79

Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Alina in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.

Variant Forms

NameMeaningGenderOrigin
Allene Fair: Good-Looking. Feminine Of Allen Or Variant Of Helen. Female Celtic
Lena Name Suffix. Female English
Lina Light Female Romanian

Looking for names like Alina?

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.

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Compare Alina to Other Popular Names

Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Alina 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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Alina Baby Name Ideas