Meaning of our names.

Anna – Origin and Meaning @ Baby Names Pedia
Anna – Origin and Meaning

Kim – Origin and Meaning @ Baby Names Pedia
Kim – Origin and Meaning

ANNA

Gender: Feminine

Usage: English, Italian, German, Dutch, Scandinavian, Finnish, Estonian, Greek, Hungarian, Polish, Russian, Czech, Slovak, Bulgarian, Icelandic, Catalan, Provençal, Breton, Biblical, Old Church Slavic, Biblical Latin, Biblical Greek

Other Scripts: Αννα (Greek), Анна (Russian, Bulgarian, Church Slavic)

Pronounced: AN-a (English), AHN-nah (Italian, Dutch, Polish), AH-nah (German, Russian) [key]

Form of Channah (see HANNAH) used in the Greek and Latin Old Testament. Many later Old Testament translations, including the English, use the Hannah spelling. The name appears briefly in the New Testament belonging to a prophetess who recognized Jesus as the Messiah. It was a popular name in the Byzantine Empire from an early date, and in the Middle Ages it became common among Western Christians due to veneration of Saint Anna (usually known as Saint Anne in English), the name traditionally assigned to the mother of the Virgin Mary. In the English-speaking world, this form came into general use in the 18th century, joining Ann and Anne.

The name was borne by several Russian royals, including an 18th-century empress of Russia. It was also the name of the main character in Leo Tolstoy’s novel ‘Anna Karenina’ (1877), a woman forced to choose between her son and her lover.