'Annona' originates from Latin, specifically the word 'annōna', where 'annus' meant 'year' and the sense was roughly 'produce of the year' or 'annual produce (especially grain)'.

'Annona' was used in Classical Latin to mean the year's produce or the public grain supply; the term was used in Roman administrative and religious contexts and later was taken into scholarly and botanical use (e.g., as a genus name in Linnaean taxonomy), becoming the English form 'Annona' through direct classical borrowing.

Initially it meant 'the year's produce' or 'grain supply' in Latin; over time the form 'Annona' came to be used both for the Roman personification/administrative meaning and as a botanical genus name for fruit-bearing trees, so its modern senses include both the historical Roman concept and the plant genus.