From the Cuban capital La Habana; origin debated, possibly from Taíno chief Habaguanex. Used as a modern given name.
Havana is first and foremost a place name: the capital of Cuba, founded by Spanish colonizers in the sixteenth century and named after the Taíno people, the island's indigenous inhabitants. The Spanish form Habana may derive from a Taíno chief or word, though the precise etymology remains debated by historians.
For centuries Havana was one of the wealthiest and most strategically vital ports in the Atlantic world — a city of colonial grandeur, sugar wealth, and the transatlantic slave trade's brutal infrastructure. Its name entered the English-speaking imagination as shorthand for a particular kind of tropical lushness and political complexity. As a given name, Havana carries the full weight of that place's sensory mythology: crumbling pastel architecture, vintage American cars, cigar smoke curling in humid air, salsa rhythms echoing off cobblestones, and the bittersweet quality of a city frozen and preserved by political circumstance.
Singer Camila Cabello's 2017 global hit 'Havana' — with its line 'half of my heart is in Havana' — introduced the name to an enormous new audience, giving it a contemporary pop-cultural warmth. As a given name it belongs to a broader trend of place names as first names (Brooklyn, London, India), and it occupies that space with particular flair: it is romantic, rhythmically satisfying, and rich with history.