Origin: Spanish
Gender: Feminine
Pronunciation (I-tah-nah)
The name comes from Sierra de Aitana, the name of a mountain range located in Alicante, Valencia, Spain.
As a given name, it was first used by the Spanish poet, Rafael Alberti for his daughter, Aitana Alberti (b.1946). Supposedly the Aitana mountain range was the last thing he saw from the plain when he went into exile after the Spanish Civil War.
The name was further popularized by Spanish-Italian actress Aitana Sánchez-Gijón (b.1968), who was the goddaugher of Aitana Alberti.
Since then, the name has become extremely popular across the Spanish-speaking world.
The etymology of the place itself is debated, but a popular theory is that it is from the Latin Edetana, which means “mountain of the Edetani.” The Edetani were an Iberian tribe who had settled in the vicinity Sierra de Aitana.
Another theory is that it is related to some unknown Arabic source meaning “our people.”
As of 2016, she was the 30th most popular female name in Spain.
In the United States, Aitana first appeared in the U.S. Top 1000 Most Popular Female Names in 2015 and is currently the 549th most popular female name in the United States (2016).
Sources
- http://www.ine.es
- https://www.behindthename.com/name/aitana/submitted
- https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aitana
- https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Aitana
- https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sierra_de_Aitana
- https://www.ssa.gov