Anastasia reached its peak at rank 132 in 2018 and now sits at 166, with about 55,275 cumulative American girls on SSA record. The name is Greek by origin, Russian by association, and unusually durable — Anastasia has been on the SSA top 1000 every year since 1990, despite a sound that some American parents still find heavily formal.
The Greek root
Anastasia comes from the Greek anastasis, meaning "resurrection," and was used in early Christian communities as a name of theological significance. Saint Anastasia of Sirmium, an early Christian martyr venerated since the 4th century, gave the name a place in the broader Christian calendar — her feast day falls on December 25 in the Roman Catholic tradition, sharing the date with Christmas.
The Eastern Orthodox tradition carried Anastasia through the Byzantine and Russian Orthodox naming conventions for more than a millennium, which is why the name reads so strongly Russian to most American ears despite its Greek origin.
The Romanov echo
The most-recognized Anastasia in 20th-century memory is Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova (1901-1918), youngest daughter of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia. Her death during the Bolshevik execution of the imperial family generated decades of imposters and conspiracy theories, culminating in the 1956 Ingrid Bergman film and the 1997 Don Bluth animated film Anastasia, which both anchored the name in American pop culture.
The animated 1997 film coincided with a meaningful uptick in Anastasias born in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and the 2017 Broadway musical adaptation contributed a smaller secondary lift.
The counter-reading
The Fifty Shades of Grey association requires acknowledgement. Anastasia Steele, the protagonist of E.L. James's 2011 novel and the 2015 film adaptation, became a culturally dominant Anastasia for a brief period. The novel's audience and the children-named-Anastasia audience overlap less than one might expect, and the SSA data shows continued steady use through the franchise's run rather than the spike-and-collapse that often follows a controversial association.
Sibling pairings on naming forums lean similarly long-classical: Anastasia and Genevieve, Anastasia and Josephine, Anastasia and Alexandra. The Ana, Stacy, and Tasia nicknames give parents unusual flexibility. For more, browse Greek girl names. The four-syllable structure makes Anastasia unusually long for the modern American chart, but the multiple stress patterns (an-uh-STAY-zhuh, an-uh-stah-SEE-uh) give parents some flexibility in how the name lands across regions and family traditions.