Anita is the Spanish diminutive of Ana, which goes back to the Hebrew Hannah and means "grace" or "favor". In the United States it had its best years in the 1950s, when the actress Anita Ekberg and the musical West Side Story kept it in the public eye. Anita ranked number 736 in 2000, left the top 1000 soon after and has stayed between number 1230 and number 1530 for the past decade, standing at number 1342 in 2025.