niña

Niña is a Spanish feminine noun meaning girl or young girl. It is used as a given name in Spanish-speaking countries and appears in various personal names and nicknames. The form with the tilde is standard in Spanish; in non-Spanish contexts it may appear without diacritics.

The Niña refers to one of Christopher Columbus's ships on his first voyage to the Americas in 1492. The vessel was a small caravel, likely built in the late 15th century. Historians generally say its original name was Santa Clara, but it was popularly known as La Niña to distinguish it from the other two ships, Pinta and Santa María. The Niña was smaller than Santa María and carried a crew of roughly 20 to 40 men. It sailed to the Caribbean and returned to Spain after the voyage; its later fate is not well documented. A modern educational replica, commonly called Nina, has helped popularize the image of Columbus's fleet.

La Niña is also the name given in meteorology to a climate pattern characterized by cooler-than-average sea surface temperatures in the eastern and central Pacific Ocean. It is the opposite phase of El Niño and is part of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation cycle, influencing global weather patterns, including rainfall and tropical cyclone activity.