Hannah in Arabic: حنة, هانا, and Which One to Use

Hannah in Arabic is حنة (Ḥanna), the mother of Samuel in the Arabic Bible, and the name Arab Christians also give Saint Anne, the mother of Mary. For an English speaker named Hannah, Arabic usually spells the sound: هانا (Hana), as Arabic Wikipedia does for the actor Hannah Waddingham.

Copy the form you need. The Listen button reads each spelling in your device's Arabic voice, if it has one, so you can hear how حنة and هانا differ.

Hannah in Arabic calligraphy, in three styles

Renders of حنة and هانا, in Amiri, Reem Kufi and Rakkas, drawn straight from the font files.

حنة or هانا: which spelling should you use?

Use حنة for the Arabic name: Arabic Wikipedia gives it to both its article on the mother of Samuel, حنة (زوجة ألقانة), and its article on Saint Anne, حنة (أم مريم العذراء). Use هانا for an English speaker. The philosopher Hannah Arendt is the exception in the table further down: her article is titled حنة آرنت, with the Arabic form.

How Arabic Wikipedia writes people called Hannah

For the biblical Hannah and for Saint Anne, Arabic Wikipedia uses the Arabic form. For the three modern people called Hannah in the table below, its titles write حنة once and هانا twice. Our name tool gives هانا, the spelling of Hannah Waddingham's article.

How حنة is spelled, letter by letter

حنة has three letters, read from right to left, starting with the letter ح, ḥāʾ. Every letter of حنة joins the one after it, so the name is one unbroken shape. Arabic writes only long vowels as letters. The two short vowels, and the shadda that doubles a consonant, are marks that everyday spelling leaves out; حَنَّة shows them.

What does Hannah mean?

Hannah means favour, grace, according to Behind the Name. The Hebrew Ḥanna means favour or grace, from ḥanan, to be gracious, the root that also gives John, Yoḥanan. Behind the Name gives the Arabic as حنّة, with the breathy ḥ and a doubled n. Anne and Anna are later forms of the same name. Hannah was one of the 100 most common names given to girls born in the US in 2024, in the Social Security Administration's 2024 national file, as copied in the usbabynames data package.

Two related names on this site are Mary in Arabic, مريم and Rachel in Arabic, راحيل. For Arabic names to choose from, browse the Arabic girl names with their meanings, part of our Arabic vocabulary lists.

Write حنة in more fonts and download it

Paste حنة into the box below, or into our Arabic calligraphy generator, to draw it in 12 more fonts and save it as a PNG.

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