Holiday Calendar

National Tina Day

Next celebratedThursday, January 28, 2027

Slovenia has more Tinas living in it than ever recorded, 7,841 of them on 1 January 2026, and registered twelve newborn ones in the whole of last year. January 28 is the name's day, and it belongs to the first number.

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Last updated September 6, 2026 · by the Holiday Calendar TeamHave an update or spot an error?
YEARLY DATEJanuary 28
OBSERVED INInternationally
CATEGORYNames
ORIGIN

Community Origin

FOUNDING ENTITY
Not documented
FIRST OBSERVED
Not documented
HOW THE HOLIDAY CAME TO BE

It circulates as online listings and social posts.

No founder, organisation or establishing announcement for National Tina Day has been located. Nothing on record says who proposed January 28 or why.

+ Know the story? Submit a founder Help us complete this holiday
INTRO

Slovenia keeps gaining Tinas without naming many new ones

Slovenia keeps a running headcount of every first name in the country. On 1 January 2026 its statistical office counted 7,841 women and girls named Tina living there. That is the highest figure in the whole published series, which opens in 2008 at 7,427.

Slovenian parents have all but stopped supplying them. The same office counts the names given to babies, and in 2025 it registered 12 girls named Tina, down from 222 in 1992.

One figure is a headcount of the living. The other is a single year of births. National Tina Day falls on January 28, and it belongs to the first kind of number.

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ORIGINS

Tina Day history

CHAPTER 01

A nickname with more than one parent

Tina is not a name with a single parent. Behind the Name files it as a short form of Christina and Martina and other names ending in tina. It adds three more: Catharina in Dutch use, Katarina in Swedish and Croatian, and Tinatin in Georgian.

Nothing binds that list together except the sound at the end of it. A Dutch Tina and a Croatian Tina are shortening different names.

CHAPTER 02

A name a poet invented

One of those names did not exist until somebody wrote it down. Behind the Name records Tinatin as a name devised by the Georgian poet Shota Rustaveli for his 12th-century epic The Knight in the Panther's Skin, where Tinatin rules Arabia and loves the knight Avtandil.

The reference gives its meaning cautiously, as possibly related to the Georgian word sinatle, light. Georgian speakers shorten it to Tina.

CHAPTER 03

The most famous Tina was not born one

Anna Mae Bullock was born in Brownsville, Tennessee, on 26 November 1939, and began performing as Little Ann. Britannica records that in 1960 she was given the name Tina Turner by her partner Ike Turner.

The same entry adds a detail about how a name can become property. Ike Turner reportedly had it trademarked, so that another singer could perform under it if she ever left the band.

CHAPTER 04

The day nobody signed

National Tina Day has no such paper trail. No founder, no organisation and no announcement has been located, and nothing on record explains why the date is January 28.

The oldest dated trace a web-archive search turns up is an online listing from March 2023. That sets a floor on how old it is and says nothing about where it came from.

WHY THIS DAY MATTERS

Why We Love National Tina Day

Reach

One short name, eleven languages that all know it.

Behind the Name lists Tina in English, Italian, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, German, Slovene, Croatian, Macedonian and Georgian use. Whatever longer name sits behind it in each of them, the shortening arrives at the same place. That is a wide catchment for a day built around a single name.

Standing

A nickname in one country is a full name in another

English reference works file Tina as a short form. Slovenia's Central Population Register treats it differently, listing Tina as a first name in legal use and placing it inside the country's twenty most common female names in 2026. The same four letters do different jobs depending on where the paperwork was filed.

Persistence

It has never once dropped out of the American record

The Social Security Administration leaves out any name given to fewer than five babies of one sex in a year. Tina has cleared that bar in all 146 years the agency has published, from 1880 to 2025. That covers three-quarters of a century of obscurity before the boom and the four decades since it ended.

TIMELINE

Timeline

First in the file

The opening year of the Social Security Administration's national name data lists 17 American girls named Tina.

The year it moved

The American count jumps from 1,236 to 3,275 in a single year, lifting the name from 230th to 132nd.

Into the top hundred

Tina enters America's 100 most common girls' names for the first time, at 87th.

The high-water mark

The name reaches 18th on 14,772 births, its largest count and its largest share of newborn American girls.

The same rank, fewer babies

Tina matches its best placing of 18th, this time on 11,523 births rather than the 1968 total.

Out at exactly one hundred

Tina finishes the year ranked 100th and leaves the top hundred, closing an unbroken run.

BY THE NUMBERS

National Tina Day by the Numbers

292,146
US girls named Tina since 1880
126,401
US Tinas born during the 1960s
28 years
Tina's unbroken run in the US top 100
2,815th
Tina's 2025 rank, US girls' names
34%
Share of 1962 US -ina girls named Tina

GET INVOLVED

How to Celebrate National Tina Day

EDITOR'S PICK

Look up the year she was born

The Social Security Administration's national files give a count for every year since 1880. Only 61 American girls were given the name in 2025, so a Tina born now is rare in a way a Tina born in the 1960s was not.

ASK

Ask which name it shortens

It is a fair question and the answer is not obvious. Behind the Name's entry lists the candidates, and which one applies depends on where the family came from.

SEND

Send the message on the day

January 28 is a low-stakes excuse to text somebody you have not spoken to in a while. The whole observance runs on people noticing a name they share with someone they like.

READ

Read how the name was handed over

Britannica's entry on Tina Turner covers the moment the name changed hands and what was done with it afterwards. Not every famous name was chosen by the person carrying it.

KEEP

Keep the September dates straight

If the plan is really about the singer rather than the name, aim at a different weekend entirely. Brownsville, Tennessee, hosts Heritage Days every September at the West Tennessee Delta Heritage Center.

Test your knowledge

How well do you know National Tina Day?

1 / 7

Which of these is NOT one of the names Behind the Name lists Tina as a short form of?

Answer

No. It is an unofficial observance with no legal standing, and no proclamation, statute or government record establishing it has been found.

COLOPHON

Sources

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

8sources
5primary records
5independently dated
Primary records
U.S. Social Security Administration2025 data year
Beyond the Top 1000 Names (national baby name data)
The agency's full national files, one per year from 1880 to 2025, listing every first name given to at least five American babies of a sex in that year. Every American count and rank on this page is derived from these files.
View source
U.S. Social Security Administration
Popular Names in the 1960s
The agency's own ranked table for the decade, which places Tina 31st among girls' names of the 1960s with 126,401 births.
View source
Statistical Office of the Republic of Sloveniaupdated 27 May 2026
Female first names, Slovenia, annually (SiStat table 05X1010S)
A headcount and ranking of every female first name in legal use in Slovenia's Central Population Register, as of 1 January each year from 2008 to 2026.
View source
Statistical Office of the Republic of Sloveniaupdated 19 June 2026
Baby girls' first names, Slovenia, annually (SiStat table 05X2002S)
Counts and ranks of the first names given to girls born in Slovenia each year from 1992 to 2025, covering names that occur at least five times in at least one year.
View source
Friends of the Delta Heritage Center
About Us, Tina Turner Heritage Days
The organisers' account of the Tina Turner Museum at Flagg Grove School in Brownsville, Tennessee, the museum's opening on 26 September 2014, and the annual Heritage Days held on the fourth weekend of September.
View source
Additional coverage
Behind the Name
Meaning, origin and history of the name Tina
The reference entry for Tina, listing the longer names it shortens across English, Dutch, Swedish, Croatian and Georgian use, and the eleven language usages recorded for it.
View source
Behind the Nameentry updated 21 January 2022
Meaning, origin and history of the name Tinatin
The entry for the Georgian name Tina shortens, recording it as devised by Shota Rustaveli for The Knight in the Panther's Skin and possibly related to the Georgian word for light.
View source
Encyclopaedia Britannicalast updated 1 August 2026
Tina Turner, Biography, Songs, Albums, Movies, and Facts
The biography giving her original name, birth date and birthplace, her early stage name Little Ann, the 1960 naming by Ike Turner and his reported trademarking of it.
View source
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