Aisha
Feminine · Arabic roots · “Living”
Aisha is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 26,933 girls against 27 boys since 1880.
Aisha has been in continuous use since the seventh century, carried by Arabic speakers from the Arabian Peninsula to West Africa, the Balkans, South Asia and eventually the Americas. It is three open syllables with no hard consonant in them, and it means something plain and good: alive, living. Few names of that age are still this widely recognized and this rarely duplicated in a single classroom.
How old is the name Aisha?
Aisha first appears in US birth records in 1950 — 75 years ago. The typical Aisha alive today was born around 2001, making them about 24 years old. About 26,500 people named Aisha are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Aisha most popular?
Aisha peaked in 1977, reaching #175 nationally. Today it ranks #337, 162 places below that high. See the whole 1977 chart.
Aisha appears on these lists:
Where it comes from
From ʿĀʾisha (Arabic) to Aisha
The story of Aisha
Aisha is the English spelling of Arabic ʿĀʾisha, a feminine form built on the root meaning 'to live'. Its fame across the Muslim world rests on Aisha bint Abi Bakr, wife of the Prophet Muhammad and a major transmitter of hadith in the seventh century; from that point the name travels wherever Islam travels, taking local shape as Ayşe in Turkish, Aïcha in French-speaking North Africa, Ayesha in South Asia, and Aixa in Spanish by way of al-Andalus. It reached American birth records in the middle of the twentieth century and climbed through the 1970s, a period when many Black American families were drawing names from Arabic and African traditions. It has been in steady use here ever since, and is rising again now.
Meaning
Living, alive; thriving
From the Arabic root ʿ-y-sh, 'to live'. The same root gives the ordinary Arabic words for life and living.
How the name formed
- ʿĀʾishaArabic
- Ayşe / Aïcha
- Ayesha
- Aisha
Related forms: عائشة (ʿĀʾisha) · Ayşe · Aïcha · Ayesha · Aixa · A'isha
Pronouncing Aisha
ah-EE-shuh
Also widely said AY-shuh, and in Arabic closer to AA-ee-sha with a catch of breath in the middle. All three are current in the US, so the family's preferred version is worth stating once and early.
Nicknames for Aisha
High
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1950
- Most girls named
- 19771,540 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #175reached in 1977
- Change vs 2024
- +1.1%910 in 2025, from 900
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Aisha in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- عائشة (ʿĀʾisha) in Arabic — same name
- Ayşe in Turkish — related form
- Aïcha in French / North African — spelling variant
- Ayesha in Urdu / South Asian English — spelling variant
- Aixa in Spanish — related form
- A'isha in Hausa — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: New York, Texas, California.
Aishas among us
people named Aisha are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 1,766 born in 2025 was named Aisha
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Aisha
- #337
- Aisha on the 2025 chart
- #298
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Aisha went to 910 girls in 2025, but Aysha, Aishah and Ayisha are the same name said out loud. Together the 5 spellings went to 1,054, which makes it the 298th most-given girls’ name of the year — 39 places above the chart.
and 1 rarer spelling.
About 1 girl in 1,525 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 1,766 for Aisha itself.
Spellings are grouped by a fixed rule that folds interchangeable English spellings of one sound (ck/k, ph/f, x/ks, a non-initial y for i) and keeps vowels apart, so Sean and Shawn stay separate names. It errs towards splitting: a family here is never larger than the truth. SSA national data, 2025. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Dorothea test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Aisha's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Dorothea climbed just as high around 1912, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Dorothea's path sketches the road Aisha is walking now.
Aisha is on its second act. Revived names age gently: the generation that wore them first is far enough away that the name feels classic rather than dated.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Aisha is headed
Aisha looks set to keep climbing gently, with roughly 20% more babies a year by 2030 if the current curve holds.
Medium confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Aisha beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Aisha in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A clear, settled meaning — 'living' — from a root still used in everyday Arabic.
- Recognized across Arabic, Turkish, Swahili, Urdu, French and Spanish-speaking communities without needing translation.
- Continuously documented since the seventh century, with no gap in use anywhere along the way.
- Short forms already in circulation: Aish, Isha, Aishu.
- Three syllables spelled phonetically enough that most English readers get close on the first try.
- Two pronunciations compete in American English — ah-EE-shuh and AY-shuh — so expect to correct people, or to accept both.
- The spelling has real rivals: Ayesha, Aiesha and Aïcha are all established, and some people will default to one of those when writing it down.
- In Muslim families the name carries a specific and honored association with Aisha bint Abi Bakr. That is a strength for many; for families outside that tradition, it is simply worth knowing the name arrives with it.
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Aisha
Feminine · Arabic roots · #337 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Aishas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 26,500 people named Aisha are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Aisha?
- Aisha is the most-used spelling in US records — 910 of the 1,054 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Aysha, Aishah and Ayisha.
- How popular is the name Aisha in 2025?
- Aisha ranks #337 among US girl names in 2025, with 910 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Aisha?
- About 1 in every 1,766 US girls born in 2025 was named Aisha — 910 in all.
- Will my child share the name Aisha with classmates?
- Aisha will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Aisha
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Anaya#336 · Miley#338 · Emory#339 · Mira#335 · Teagan#340 · Heidi#340 · Hattie#334 · Lorelai#333
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Aisha? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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