Mona
Where Mona comes from
Anglicized from Irish and Scottish Gaelic Muadhnait, from Middle Irish múad (“noble”). In northern Europe, where the name is much more popular, Mona is interpreted as a diminutive of Monica or, rarely, of Ramona, and sometimes associated with the title of da Vinci's painting Mona (=madonna) Lisa. The Arabic and Persian name مُنىٰ (munā) is sometimes Romanised as Mona.
- Irish
- Arabic
- 2 syllables
- Vowel-ended
Along the way
- 1880First SSA yearAlready #449 among girls — 14 babies in the first year on record.
- 1950Peak, #2301,088 babies named Mona — more than any year before or since.
- 1957Mona Sahlin bornSwedish politician
- 1971The fadeThe first year with half the peak's births — down to #448.
- 1990Mona Barthel bornGerman tennis player
In the dictionary
- A female given name from Irish.
- A female given name from Arabic.
Namesakes
- Mona Barthel · German tennis player, born 1990
- Mona Sahlin · Swedish politician, born 1957
- Mona Eltahawy · Egyptian-American journalist, born 1967
- Mona Simpson · American novelist, born 1957
- Mona Hatoum · Palestinian sculptor and installation artist, born 1952
Sources: the origin note and dictionary entry are quoted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0); the namesakes come from Wikidata (CC0); the milestones are worked out from the SSA record.