Adriana

Where the name comes from

• Latin
  From Adria (Hadria), a Roman harbor town in northern Italy
  Hadrianus (Adrianus), the masculine form, which became Adrian
  Adriana is the feminine form of Adrian. Adrian comes from the Latin Hadrianus, meaning 'from the Roman harbor Adria.' Etymonline gives the meaning 'of the Adriatic.' The town of Atria or Hatria (modern Adria) also gave the Adriatic Sea its name. It was once a seaport but now sits more than 12 miles inland. The feminine Latin form Adriana is recorded in France about 1,200 years ago. It is recorded in Italy in the early 1500s and among Dutch families in England in the 1590s.
• Origin of the place name Adria
  Origin uncertain
  Possibly Latin atra 'black,' or possibly Illyrian adur 'water, sea'
  Scholars are not sure what the town name Adria itself meant. One idea is Latin atra, 'black,' which would make it 'the black city.' Another is an Illyrian word, adur, meaning 'water' or 'sea.' Both are only possibilities. Popular meanings like 'dark one' and 'woman of the sea' come from these guesses. They are popular meanings, not the attested meaning of the name. What the name actually says is 'from Adria.'

Adriana across traditions

• Christian. The masculine form, Adrian, was carried by early saints and by several popes. That helped keep the name family in use across Catholic Europe.
• Spanish and Latin American. Adriana is the feminine partner of the Spanish man's name Adrián. Spain recorded Adrian-family names in Latin about 900 years ago and in Catalan by 1510. In Puerto Rico, Adriana was the seventh most popular name for baby girls in 2000.
• English literature. Adriana is the wife of Antipholus of Ephesus in Shakespeare's comedy The Comedy of Errors.
• United States. The name was most popular in the 2000s. It ranked #124 among girls born that decade, and its best single year was #107 in 2006. It climbed steadily from the 1960s into the 1990s.

Who carried it

• Hadrian (Publius Aelius Hadrianus) (Roman emperor, about 1,900 years ago): The most famous bearer of the masculine name. He ruled the Roman Empire and started Hadrian's Wall in Britain. His family came from Picenum in Italy, the region of Hadria.
• Saint Adrian of Nicomedia (Died about 1,720 years ago): An early Christian martyr and the patron saint of soldiers and butchers.
• Pope Adrian IV (Nicholas Breakspear) (Pope from 1154 to 1159): The only English-born pope.
• Adriana (character) (Shakespeare, The Comedy of Errors): The wife of Antipholus of Ephesus, and one of the earliest well-known uses of Adriana in English.

Forms in other languages

Adrianna, Adriane, Adrianne, Adrienne, Hadriana, Adriaenken

Adriana in letter-number systems

Hebrew, Greek and other traditions gave every letter a number, and read meaning into the totals. These are the counts, computed; the readings are inside the Innerverse.