However, she was commonly referred to by her nickname, La Niña ('The Little Girl'), which was probably a pun on the name of her owner, Juan Niño of Moguer ('Niño', his surname, meaning 'Little Boy').

[4] Niña, like Pinta and Santa María, was a smaller trade ship built to sail the Mediterranean sea, not the open ocean.

It was greatly surpassed in size by ships like Peter von Danzig of the Hanseatic League, built in 1462, 51 m (167 ft) in length, and the English carrack Grace Dieu, built during the period 1420–1439, weighing between 1,400 and 2,750 tons, and 66.4 m (218 ft) long, in both weight and length.

On 14 February 1493, in the east of the Azores, a storm threatened to capsize Niña, and at Columbus's instigation, he and the crew took a series of vows to perform certain acts including religious pilgrimages upon their return to Spain.

[6] On the first voyage to America, the crew of Niña slept on the deck but adopted the use of hammocks after seeing Native Americans utilizing them.

In 1501, she made a trading voyage to the Pearl Coast on the island of Cubagua, Venezuela, and no further log of her is found in historic archives.

In 1991, the replica sailed to Costa Rica to take part in the filming of 1492: Conquest of Paradise,[14] and Niña has visited hundreds of North America ports to give the public a chance to see and tour the ship.

The vessel continues to visit ports across the Eastern to mid-United States along with its sister replica ship, Pinta.

A replica had been harbored in Corpus Christi, Texas in the United States, but it sank on April 23, 2017—from Hurricane Harvey.