Anan
given name · Latin script
Meaning, in English: Expressing incomprehension or doubt; often requesting repetition or clarification, especially as an as an interrogative
Used for both men and women, depending on the country· national registers that list names by sex disagree
- United States (Census Bureau, 2020): listed under both sexes
- Brazil (IBGE): listed as female
(measured from records)Officially recorded in 31 countries · latest register: Census Bureau, 2020
/ˈanan/(machine-generated) Indonesian · model-generated
Anan is a given name used for both men and women, depending on the country, written in the Latin script, with more bearers in India than in any other country. In Thailand it is the 42nd most common given name.
- SASaudi Arabia≈1 in 25Kfew records(inferred from the name graph)
- VNVietnam≈1 in 85Kfew records
- THThailand≈1 in 860as อนันต์
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than Anan itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. Countries with no figure are shown too: flat where a national register lists the name without counting it, hatched where only our records hold it. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- India (inferred from the name graph)
- 8 (measured from records)
- Record sources
- 351 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 25K (inferred from the name graph)
≈1,100,000 named Anand, est.
recorded for this name
corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling
strongest: highest-authority source
Saudi Arabia, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts
(measured from records)12 other spellings are counted as the same name:
Locally spelled Ananda in IN India, BR Brazil, US United States and 3 more and อนันต์ in TH Thailand.
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin
(measured from records)Anan's inclusion in the list of signatories to the covenant underscores the theological importance of individual accountability and corporate faithfulness in post-exilic Judaism. His name, meaning "cloud," evokes biblical imagery of God's presence and guidance, reminding the renewed community of their reliance on Yahweh.
Cited for this meaning 1
- Biblical Names Compiled Database
Attested across 11 languages in the etymology graph.
How Anan is read
(measured from records)Anan is one spelling over 5 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 2 of them. Each row is what a source recorded for that language, beside the share of this name’s records the language holds. No single row is the name’s meaning.
- Thai35%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Anan in Thai.
- English13%
Expressing incomprehension or doubt; often requesting repetition or clarification, especially as an as an interrogative.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- Arabic12%
clouds
as a nameA Dictionary of Muslim Names
- Hindi9.6%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Anan in Hindi.
- Indonesian6.9%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Anan in Indonesian.
The share is ours — how much of this name’s records each language holds. The sense beside it is the source’s, quoted and credited, including where it names a gender. We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.
Where in the world
(measured from records)Anan counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| IN India | #385 | ≈1,100,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.3K | 21K | Ananda | 314 |
| ID Indonesia | — | ≈130,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.2K | listed | Anan | 83 |
| TH Thailand | #42 | ≈84,000 est. | ≈1 in 858 | register #150,191 | อนันต์ | 151 |
| BR Brazil | — | 17,323as Ananda | 1 in 12K | 17K | Ananda | 34 |
| US United States | — | 10,800as An | 1 in 31K | 9.4K | Ananda | 351 |
| LK Sri Lanka | #180 | ≈7,600 est. | ≈1 in 2.9K | — | Ananda | 51 |
| SA Saudi Arabia | — | ≈1,400 est. | ≈1 in 25K | — | Ananda | 17 |
| GY Guyana | — | 485as Anand | 1 in 1.5K | 485 | Ananda | 5 |
Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: Instate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls; IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror); Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; Guyana — Official List of Electors July 2025. Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Other recorded senses
(measured from records)Anan is also recorded in 4 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
Anan's inclusion in the list of signatories to the covenant underscores the theological importance of individual accountability and corporate faithfulness in post-exilic Judaism. His name, meaning "cloud," evokes biblical imagery of God's presence and guidance, reminding the renewed community of their reliance on Yahweh.
as a nameBiblical Names Compiled Database
The name Anan is a biblical Hebrew name meaning "cloud." It belongs to one of the leaders of Israel who demonstrated his faithfulness by signing a covenant to follow God's laws.
as a nameBiblical Names Compiled Database
The name Anan (עָנָן) is the same as the Hebrew word for "cloud".
as a nameBiblical Names Compiled Database
Fourth born
as a nameThe book of African names
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.
Notable people with this name
(measured from records)- Annasb. 40not in their usual name1st century CE High Priest of the Roman province of Iudaea
- Ananus ben Ananusb. 50ILnot in their usual name1st century High Priest of Israel (d. 68 CE)
- Arijanet Muricb. 1998CHnot in their usual nameKosovan-Swiss association football player (born 1998)
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).
How to address them
(machine-generated)A formal English salutation is built on the surname, so it needs a full name — on its own, a first name only supports the informal form.
Evidence
(measured from records)53 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 31 countries.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- How do you pronounce Anan?
- In Indonesian /ˈanan/. Transcriptions are machine-generated except where a dictionary is named.
- Where does the name Anan come from?
- Anan's inclusion in the list of signatories to the covenant underscores the theological importance of individual accountability and corporate faithfulness in post-exilic Judaism. Recorded by Biblical Names Compiled Database.
- Is Anan a male or female name?
- Anan is used for both men and women, depending on the country. National registers that list names by sex disagree: United States (Census Bureau, 2020): listed under both sexes; Brazil (IBGE): listed as female. We don't publish a percentage split.
- What does the name Anan mean?
- In English, Expressing incomprehension or doubt; often requesting repetition or clarification, especially as an as an interrogative.
- Which countries have the most people named Anan?
- Mondonomo estimates about 1.1 million people named Anand in India, more than in any other country we hold. After it come Indonesia, Thailand, Brazil and United States; the country table on this page ranks them.
- How common is the name Anan?
- In Brazil, the national register counted 17,323 people named Ananda in 2022, about 1 in 12 thousand residents.
- How common is Anan compared with other names?
- In India, Anan is the 385th most common given name of 3,760,348 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Anan?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/ananThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Anan” — the 385th most common given name in India. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.