Dana (given name)

Dana is a unisex given name. It was among the 100 most popular names given to girls born in the United States between 1960 and 1990. It has since fallen in popularity and was ranked the 446th most popular name given to girls born in the United States in 2007.[1] As a male forename it is well known in the United States, being in the 314th rank out of 1,219 in the 1990 U.S. Census.

Dana
Genderunisex

The name has multiple derivations. Dana or Danah, in Arabic, means "the most perfectly sized, valuable and beautiful pearl". This name is used mainly by Arabs of the Persian Gulf (Eastern Arabia), due to their traditional pearl diving professions wherein they gave different type of pearls names. Dana is an alternate spelling of the name for Danu, a Celtic fertility goddess. In Persian, the word Dānā literally means "Wise", and some speculate that the name is first used as a first name in Shahnameh. It may also refer to the mountain Dana or Dena. The name is used in Persian for both female and male sexes. It may also come from "Dane" (from Denmark), the meaning of the common surname. It is also occasionally regarded as a feminine version of Daniel or a short version of feminine names such as Bogdana or Yordana. In Hebrew, the name Dana means "arbiter" or "God is my judge". In Sanskrit and Pali, the word means "generosity". In Romanian and Czech, it is a feminine name, derived from the name Daniela; the masculine form being Dan/Daniel. Dana is also the name of the ancient goddess of water in slavic cultures, and many rivers in eastern Europe have the letters D and N due to this.

People named Dana

Female

Male

  • Dana Allison (born 1966), American former professional baseball player
  • Dana Altman (born 1958), Oregon University basketball coach
  • Dana Andersen, Canadian actor, improvisor, filmmaker, writer and director
  • Dana Andrews (1909-1992), American actor
  • Dana Ashbrook (born 1967), American actor
  • Dana Reed Bailey (1833-1908), American politician and lawyer
  • Dana H. Ballard (born 1946), American professor of computer science
  • Dana Barros (born 1967), American, owner of the Dana Barros Sports Complex
  • Dana W. Bartlett (1860-1942), American Congregationalist minister
  • Dana Beal (born 1947), American social and political activist
  • Dana Bible (born 1953), American football coach and former player
  • Dana X. Bible (1891-1980), American football player, coach, and athletic administrator
  • Dana Boente (born 1954), Acting Attorney General of the United States
  • Dana Bourgeois (born 1953), American luthier
  • Dana Brinson (born 1965), former professional American football wide receiver
  • Dana Brown (born 1959), American surfer and film-maker, son of Bruce Brown
  • Dana Brunetti, American film producer and social networking entrepreneur
  • Dana Bullen (born 1973), director of the Press Freedom Committee, former foreign editor of The Washington Star
  • Dana Bumgardner (born 1954), American politician
  • Dana Tai Soon Burgess (born 1968), American performance artist and choreographer
  • Dana Carvey (born 1955), American comedian who has appeared as a cast member of Saturday Night Live and in the Wayne's World movie series
  • Dana Chambers (1895-1946), pen name of the mystery novelist Albert Leffingwell
  • Dana Childs (1922-1999), Member of the Maine House of Representatives
  • Dana K. Chipman (born 1958), American military lawyer, former Judge Advocate General of the United States Army
  • Dana L. Christensen (born 1951), American federal judge, for the District of Montana
  • Dana Colley (born 1961), American musician, saxophonist in the alternative rock band Morphine
  • Dana Countryman (born 1954), American electronic music composer and performer, publisher of Cool and Strange Music Magazine
  • Dana Dane (born 1965 as Dana McLeese), rap artist
  • Dana DeMuth (born 1956), Major League Baseball umpire
  • Dana Deshler (1937-2012), member of the Ohio House of Representatives
  • Dana Dimel (born 1962), American football coach and former player
  • Dana A. Dorsey (1872-1940), American businessman, banker, and philanthropist
  • Dana Dow, Republican former Maine state senator
  • Dana Elcar (1927-2005), American television and movie character actor
  • Dana Evans (1874-1924), American athlete, coach and athletics administrator
  • Dana Eveland (born 1983), American professional baseball pitcher
  • Dana Ewell (born 1971), American convicted triple murderer
  • Dana Fillingim (1893-1961), American major league baseball pitcher
  • Dana Gioia (born 1950), American poet
  • Dana Karl Glover (born 1958), American trumpet player and music composer for video games, also known as Karl James or Dr. Dana
  • Dana Goldman, professor of economics at the University of Southern California
  • Dana Gonzales, American cinematographer
  • Dana Gould, American comedian and comedy writer
  • Dana McLean Greeley, founding president of the Unitarian Universalist Association
  • Dana Hall, former American professional football player
  • Dana Hall (musician), American jazz drummer, percussionist, composer, bandleader, and ethnomusicologist
  • Dana Hamilton, American hammered dulcimer player
  • Dana Hammond, American record producer, composer, songwriter, drummer and bass guitarist
  • Dana Heitman, trumpeter for the Cherry Poppin' Daddies
  • Dana Holgorsen, American football coach and former player
  • Dana Howard (American football), former professional American football player
  • Dana Howard (television), American former local TV news anchorman
  • Dana Jennings, American journalist and author, New York Times editor
  • Dana Jones, former American professional basketball player
  • Dana Kafer, American college football player
  • Dana Evan Kaplan, rabbi, writer on Reform Judaism and American Judaism
  • Dana Key, American Christian rock singer and pastor
  • Dana Kiecker, former major league baseball pitcher, sportscaster
  • Dana M. King, American college football coach
  • Dana Kirk (basketball), American college basketball coach
  • Dana Knutson, American fantasy artist, known for illustrating role-playing games
  • Dana Kunze, former champion high diver
  • Dana Lamb, American travel writer, co-wrote with his wife Ginger
  • Dana Lambert, Canadian author, politician and cannabis legalization activist
  • Dana LeVangie, American professional baseball player, scout and coach
  • Dana Lewis, Canadian TV journalist
  • Dana Lyons, folk music and alternative rock musician
  • Dana Ahmed Majid, Iraqi Kurdish politician, former governor of Sulaymaniah
  • Dana Malone, American politician, attorney general of Massachusetts
  • Dana McLemore, former professional American football cornerback
  • Dana G. Mead, American businessman, former chairman of MIT's board of trustees
  • Dana Milbank, American journalist
  • Dana Mohler-Faria, American education administrator, president of Bridgewater State University
  • Dana Morgan, Jr., bassist for the Warlocks
  • Dana Carleton Munro, American historian
  • Dana Murzyn, former Canadian professional ice hockey league player
  • Dana S. Nau, professor of computer science and systems research at the University of Maryland, College Park
  • Dana Nafziger, American football player
  • Dana Nielsen, American mix engineer, audio engineer, record producer and saxophonist
  • Dana Olsen, American scriptwriter
  • Dana Pagett, American professional basketball player and coach
  • Dana Peterson, American political consultant, husband of Louisiana state senator Karen Carter Peterson
  • Dana J. H. Pittard, American major general
  • Dana Porter, Canadian politician and jurist
  • Dana Quigley, American professional golfer
  • Dana Redd, American Democratic politician, mayor of Camden, New Jersey
  • Dana G. "Buck" Rinehart, 50th mayor of Columbus, Ohio
  • Dana James Rock, Bio Engineer & Architect in New York City, spent his youth in Houston, Tx. Also disease treatment activist dedicating his life to the Cancer recovery solution of 5lbs of Carrots which when extracted and used as a daily drink has the ability to transform all stages and types of cancer to healthy cells within 6 months
  • "Dangerous" Dana Rosenblatt, American world champion middleweight boxer
  • Dana Fuller Ross, pen name used by Western novelists Noel B. Gerson and James M. Reasoner
  • Dana P. Rowe, American musical theater composer
  • Dana Rucker, American college football coach
  • Dana Makoto Sabraw, United States federal judge
  • Dana Sawyer, American biographer and professor of religion
  • Dana Scott, American mathematician
  • Dana Adam Shapiro, American film director
  • Dana Sheridan, American flute maker
  • Dana Shires, American physician, research scientist, and inventor
  • Dana A. Simmons, American air force general
  • Dana Snyder, American comedian and actor
  • Dana Snyman, South African journalist, writer and playwright
  • Dana Stein, American Democratic politician
  • Dana Stinson, American hip hop and R&B record producer, rapper and singer, known by the stage name Rockwilder
  • Dana Stone, American photo-journalist
  • Dana Strum (born 1958), heavy metal bassist (Slaughter)
  • Dana Stubblefield (born 1970), American professional football defensive tackle
  • Dana Summers, American cartoonist (Bound and Gagged, The Middletons)
  • Dana Tomlin, American cartographer, inventor of map algebra
  • Dana Tyrell (born 1989), American professional ice hockey player
  • Dana Veth (born 1987), former Bahamian footballer
  • Dana Wachs, American lawyer and politician
  • Dana Ward (born 1957), professor emeritus of political studies at Pitzer College
  • Dana Wells (born 1966), retired American football nose tackle
  • Dana White (born 1969), President of the UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship)
  • L. Dana Wilgress (1892-1969), Canadian diplomat
  • Dana Williams (born 1963), retired American professional baseball player
  • Dana Wilson (born 1946), American composer, jazz pianist, and teacher
  • Dana Wilson (1983-2011), Cook Islands professional rugby league player
  • Dana Zimmerman, American paralympic athlete

Fiction

  • Dana, fictional intern on the podcast Welcome to Night Vale
  • Dana, on the television show Angel
  • Dana, the title character's lover in the Italian photo comic Killing (later revived as Sadistik: The Diabolikal Super-Kriminal)
  • Dana Appleton, the lawyer opposite Jim Carrey in the 1997 film Liar Liar
  • Dana Barrett, featured in the Ghostbusters movies
  • Dana Carrington, minor character in the American TV series Dynasty
  • Dana Cruz, character on Zoey 101
  • Dana Dearden, obsessed Superman fan who called herself Superwoman
  • Dana Fairbanks, main character from Showtime's lesbian drama series The L Word
  • Dana Foster, fictional character on Step By Step
  • Dana Freeling, a female character in the film Poltergeist (1982)
  • Dana Iclucia female protagonist from the video game Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana
  • Dana Knightstone, fictional novelist, main character of the Dana Knightstone series of games
  • Dana Lambert, regular character on the TV show Mission: Impossible
  • Dana Marschz, main character in Hamlet 2
  • Dana Mercer, younger sister of main character Alex Mercer in the video game Prototype
  • Dana Mitchell, on the show Lightspeed Rescue Power Rangers
  • Dana Scully, main character on the television show The X-Files
  • Dana Sterling, from the Robotech anime television series
  • Dana Stevens, a fictional trans woman featured in Chris Bohjalian's novel Trans-Sister Radio
  • Dana Tan, Batman's girlfriend on the TV series Batman Beyond
  • Dana Taylor, the former name of Zach Young on the television show Desperate Housewives
  • Dana Whitaker, a character in the television series Sports Night
  • Dana Wolf, on the German soap opera Verbotene Liebe

Mythology

See also

References

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