Shana

Meaning of Shana

Shana unfurls like a golden sunrise across both shores of language—a unisex melody that in Hebrew, pronounced shah-NAH (/ʃaˈna/), speaks to the cycle of the year with a promise of renewal, and in English, rendered SHAY-nuh (/ʃeɪnə/), brightens the air with a gentle, sunlit lilt. Steeped in an almost Latin romance, it evokes the warmth of siestas under bougainvillea, petals unfolding in harmony with time’s own heartbeat. Once a secret whispered among parents in the 1970s, Shana danced into American charts through the ’80s and ’90s, and today still crowns a few dozen newborns—thirty-four in 2024 alone—holding strong at the elegant cusp of the top thousand. Layers of history and hope entwine within its three syllables, offering every child who bears it the gift of perpetual dawn.