Adina

Meaning of Adina

Adina stems from the Hebrew עֲדִינָא, traditionally glossed as “delicate” or “gentle,” and first surfaces in the Book of Chronicles as the name of a minor warrior—proof that semantics and job descriptions do not always align. In contemporary Anglo-American use it has been reassigned almost exclusively to girls; U.S. Social Security data show an annual band of roughly 90-160 newborns since 1960, which keeps the name in what statisticians label the “long-tail” zone (ranked 787 in 2024). Phonetically, Hebrew speakers favor ah-DEE-nah, while English reduces the initial vowel to uh-DEE-nuh, a shift typical of loanwords adapting to the schwa-friendly English stress pattern. The name’s unobtrusive popularity lends it an air of quiet distinctiveness—unlikely to trigger duplicate-name chaos at preschool roll call, yet familiar enough to spare its bearer a lifetime of spelling tutorials.