Rashanna

History & Origin

Rashanna belongs to the family of coined names that flowered in mid-century America, where a euphonious prefix such as Ra- was fused to a ready-made name like Shanna. Shanna descends ultimately from the Irish river name Shannon, so the second half carries a faint Irish thread, but the whole is an invented American girl's name assembled for its rhythm rather than translated from a single language.

Rashanna surfaced in United States records for only a short window, given to about fifteen girls at its busiest showing in the late nineteen-seventies and fading within a generation. A girl named Rashanna then would be in her mid-forties today, her name a small snapshot of that era's inventive style.