Meaning & origin
A reliable meaning for Ning isn’t established in our sources yet. Rather than guess, we show what is recorded: how the name is used, how often, and the names it’s connected to.
The story
Published U.S. birth records include this spelling as early as 2017. This is the earliest published observation available here, rather than a date for the name’s origin.
From dated birth records
Ning through the years
- Babies since 1880
- 16
- 0 boys · 16 girls
- Most popular year
- 2017
- 10 babies
- 2025
- 0
- Outside the ranked list
- 2021–25 vs 2016–20
- —
- Too few births to compare
By the numbers
The most recent published U.S. birth count for girls is 6 in 2022. Later missing counts do not mean the name went unused. Its largest published annual count for girls was 10 in 2017. Published U.S. population figures for this spelling include 3,381 as a first name in 2020; 1,703 as a surname in 2020.
From Social Security birth records and U.S. Census name counts for this exact spelling. Other spellings are counted separately.
Ning’s family of names
The ring: across languages.
Across languages 2
Equivalents and cognates in other languages, plus older forms it grew from.
People named Ning
- Zhang NingChinese female badminton playerborn 1975
- Ma NingChinese association football refereeborn 1979
- Gan NingGeneral serving warlord Sun Quan (died c. 220)175–222
- Mao NingChinese politician and diplomatborn 1972
- Wei Ningsport shooterborn 1982
- Tan NingChinese badminton playerborn 2003
- Ma NingChina field hockey playerborn 2000
- Ning LiAmerican physicist1943–2021
- Wang NingChinese People's Liberation Army generalborn 1955
Characters named Ning: Xu Ning (Water Margin character).
Listed by how widely each person is written about, which says nothing about the name itself.
Similar names
If you love Ning, these share its style, era, origin or sound, from outside its own family.