Sienna

Meaning of Sienna

Sienna is an English adaptation of the Italian toponym Siena—originally the Latin Senensis, “of the city of Siena”—that, through the Renaissance trade in artists’ earth pigments, came to denote the distinctive reddish-brown hue known as burnt sienna; consequently, the given name carries a dual association with Tuscan heritage and the refined color palette of classical painting. In Anglo-American usage it emerged sporadically in the late twentieth century, then gained steady traction—rising from fewer than ten recorded U.S. births in most pre-1970 cohorts to over two thousand in 2022 and maintaining a rank near 140 in 2023–2024—suggesting a sustained, though moderate, cultural resonance rather than a transient fashion spike. Contemporary bearers such as British-born actress Sienna Miller have reinforced the name’s cosmopolitan image, while its phonetic profile—three balanced syllables with the stress on the medial “EN”—renders it both lyrical and easily articulated across English dialects. Altogether, Sienna occupies a semantic space where art history, Italian geography, and modern anglophone taste intersect, offering parents a choice that is visually evocative yet semantically transparent.

Pronunciation

English

• Pronunced as see-EN-uh (/siˈɛnə/)

• Sophia
• Serena
• Siena
• Stella
• Selena
• Savannah
• Seraphina