Is National Hannah Day on September 21 or March 21?

September 21 is the date this record carries, and the only circulating date traceable to a dated listing rather than to a chatter counter or a user-submitted dictionary. A March 21 date comes from a site that computes its dates from social-media chatter and states it has no governmental remit, and Urban Dictionary gives October 20.

Who started National Hannah Day?

The day spreads through holiday listings and social posts rather than from any organisation that runs it, and no author has turned up in any search.

Are Hannah and Anna the same name?

Yes. Anna is the form of Hannah used in the Greek and Latin Old Testament, so the two are one name in two traditions rather than two related names.

National Hannah Day

Next celebratedTuesday, September 21, 2027

English got this name late: the Bible made from the Latin prints Anna sixteen times in Hannah's own chapter and Hannah not once. The name then spent 105 years outside America's top 100, and now has a day on September 21.

See how to celebrate

Countdown to the day

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Last updated September 7, 2026 · by the Holiday Calendar TeamHave an update or spot an error?

YEARLY DATESeptember 21

OBSERVED INInternationally

CATEGORYNames

ORIGIN

Community Origin

FOUNDING ENTITY

Not documented

FIRST OBSERVED

~2022

HOW THE HOLIDAY CAME TO BE

Dated only by the archive that first captured it.

No founder, organisation, proclamation or registration for National Hannah Day has been identified, and the observance circulates on listing sites and social media without a documented originator. The earliest evidence located for the September 21 date is an Internet Archive capture from 11 August 2022.

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INTRO

The day the Federal Register has never heard of

The United States has published a count of girls named Hannah for every birth year since 1880. What it has not published, anywhere a search can reach, is National Hannah Day.

Search the US Federal Register, the daily journal in which presidential proclamations are published, for this one and the count is zero.

It circulates anyway, and OK! Magazine UK has posted a public greeting to Hannahs. The name has the record the day lacks, beginning with more than a century spent outside the American top 100 before parents took it up again.

ORIGINS

Hannah Day history

INTRODUCTION

The oldest text that names her is Hebrew. 1 Samuel 1:2 introduces Elkanah's household: "He had two wives, one named Hannah and the other Peninnah; Peninnah had children, but Hannah was childless."

The name sits on the root ḥanan, to be gracious, and it means favour, grace. Her own words carry the sense further, because 1 Samuel 2:1 opens her prayer: "And Hannah prayed: My heart exults in GOD; I have triumphed through GOD."

CHAPTER 01

The Latin turned her into Anna

The Latin came next. Pope Damasus commissioned Jerome in 382, and Jerome finished the Old Testament from the Hebrew about 405. His Bible, the Latin Bible used by the Roman Catholic Church, gives the verse as "et habuit duas uxores, nomen uni Anna, et nomen secundae Phenenna."

The English Bible made from that Latin kept the Latin name. Count the chapter in the Douay-Rheims text and Anna appears 16 times, while Hannah appears not once.

CHAPTER 02

Two English Bibles went back to the Hebrew

English Protestants in exile from Mary I published the Geneva Bible's Old Testament in 1560, the first English Bible with numbered verses. Its 1599 edition reads: "And he had two wives: the name of one was Hannah".

The King James Version followed in 1611, printing "And he had two wives; the name of the one was Hannah". In that same year James I banned the Geneva Bible over its commentary notes.

That split is why English got Hannah late. As an English given name it was not in regular use until after the Protestant Reformation, while Anne, Ann and the Latin Anna had been used since the late Middle Ages. Anna is not a cousin but the same name, carried among Western Christians by veneration of Saint Anna, known in English as Saint Anne.

National Hannah Day has none of that documentation. No founder, organisation, statute or trademark for it turned up in any search. The earliest archived listing anyone has for the September 21 date was captured in August 2022, which is a fact about the archive rather than about a founding.

TIMELINE

Timeline

Jerome finishes the Latin Old Testament

The Vulgate, the Latin Bible used by the Roman Catholic Church, calls Elkanah's wife Anna rather than Hannah.

The King James Version prints Hannah

Published under James I, it gives the name as Hannah at 1 Samuel 1:2, in the same year James banned the Geneva Bible.

Hannah's first year in the record

In the opening year of the US Social Security name data, Hannah ranks 97th among girls with 221 births.

Hannah hits its American low

Just 123 American girls are named Hannah, a share of 6.0 per 100,000 female births and the lowest share in the 1880 to 2025 record.

Hannah returns to the top 100

The name re-enters the US top 100 at 82nd, ending a long absence from the list.

BY THE NUMBERS

National Hannah Day by the Numbers

105: Consecutive years outside US top 100
13: Hannah's unbroken years in US top ten
23,087: US girls named Hannah in 2000
3,973: US girls named Hannah in 2025

WHY THIS DAY MATTERS

Why We Love National Hannah Day

CONTINUITY

Same share of American girls in 2025 as in 1880.

Hannah was given to 243 of every 100,000 American girls born in 1880 and to 247 of every 100,000 in 2025. The raw counts are not comparable across that span, because annual US female births grew from 90,994 to 1,607,267.

REVERSAL

The order reversed without Hannah rising

In 1880 the Anna, Ann and Anne spellings together reached 3,155 per 100,000 American girls. By 2025 they had fallen to 200 per 100,000, so the order reversed because those spellings collapsed and not because Hannah climbed.

RANKING

Three years at second place, never first

Hannah finished second among American girls' names in 1998, 1999 and 2000, and never once reached first place between 1880 and 2025. Emily held the top spot in every one of those three years.

GOOD TO KNOW

National Hannah Day Around the World

Germany

Hannah and Hanna together topped the German girls' first-name ranking in 2019, the same year the name ranked 32nd in the United States. The pair has held a top-ten place in every published year from 2010 through 2025, standing 7th in 2025 on the Erstnamenliste. The German list merges the two spellings and counts first names only, so it is a different measure from the US series, which counts the exact spelling Hannah.

United States

56th for 2025, a rank two independent parties reach from the same data. Each country below counts its own register, so these positions sit beside one another rather than on a single scale.

England and Wales

105th in 2025. The country whose translators put Hannah into English now ranks it outside its top hundred.

France

230th in 2024, the lowest of the three rankings here that come from the same international table.

GET INVOLVED

How to Celebrate National Hannah Day

Send every Hannah you know a greeting

Hannah is the whole point of the date, so start with the people who carry it. A message, a card or a post all count.

LOOK

Look Hannah up in the national birth records

The US Social Security Administration has published national name counts for every birth year since 1880. Look up the year someone you know was born and see where Hannah sat.

READ

Read the two chapters the name comes from

1 Samuel 1 and 2 carry the whole story, from Elkanah's household to Hannah's prayer. Read them in a translation made from the Hebrew, since that is where the spelling comes from.

COMPARE

Compare how two English Bibles spell her name

The Douay-Rheims chapter calls her Anna from start to finish. Open the King James text beside it and the same woman is Hannah.

WRITE

Write down where a family Hannah got her name

Somebody chose the name, and the reason is worth having in writing. Ask the Hannah in question, or whoever picked it, and put the answer somewhere it will keep.

Test your knowledge

How well do you know National Hannah Day?

1 / 8

What does the Hebrew name Hannah mean?

Answer

No. It is an unofficial observance with no legal standing found, so September 21 is a normal working day.

COLOPHON

Sources

How we know what’s on this page. References, not endorsements.

18sources

12primary records

4independently dated

Primary records

Sefaria

I Samuel 1:2, Miqra according to the Masorah with the JPS Tanakh

The Hebrew text naming Elkanah's wife, beside a modern scholarly English translation.