Nana ranks #849 with 139 female registrations. The name carries one specific cultural anchor that almost every English-speaking owner recognizes: Nana the Newfoundland nanny-dog from Peter Pan, who lent the name a permanent association with maternal, oversized, deeply protective dogs.
The Peter Pan lineage
J.M. Barrie's 1904 play and its many adaptations made Nana the canonical fictional family dog: a Newfoundland who tucks the Darling children into bed and watches over the nursery. The name on a pet license still pulls heavily from this association, and lands with notable concentration on Newfoundlands themselves, on St. Bernards, and on other large gentle-giant breeds whose maternal-protector temperament owners read through the literary lens. See Newfoundland names for the direct cluster.
The grandmother register
Nana also functions as the affectionate term for grandmother in many English-speaking households (and as a Spanish word with different meaning), which adds a parallel adoption channel: families who used Nana as their actual grandmother's nickname now use it for a beloved family dog as a tribute. The dual register is part of why the name works.
Sound and the counter-reading
Two syllables, front-stressed (NAH-na), with a soft N opening and an open -a close. The name calls warmly. The honest concern: Nana sits in active human-vocabulary use as a grandmother-term, which can create awkwardness in multigenerational households. Families who want the gentle-giant register without the family-vocabulary overlap might consider Mama or Biscuit. The human Nana page shows minimal SSA presence.