Aiva
Feminine · “Latvian aiva”
Lithuanian and Latvian are the most conservative Indo-European languages still spoken. A Lithuanian word can look startlingly like its Sanskrit cousin three thousand years later, and linguists have used the Baltic languages to reconstruct the parent tongue for two centuries. Aiva is Latvian for a quince tree.
How old is the name Aiva?
Aiva first appears in US birth records in 2002 — 23 years ago. The typical Aiva is a kid of about 12 — this name's wave is very recent. About 800 people named Aiva are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Aiva most popular?
Aiva peaked in 2014, reaching #2615 nationally. Today it ranks #8362, 5,747 places below that high. See the whole 2014 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
Origin, sound and short forms
The story of Aiva
Baltic is one of the smallest surviving branches of Indo-European and one of the most valuable to linguists, because it changed less than the others. Lithuanian in particular preserves a case system, a pitch accent and vowel distinctions that Latin and Greek had already simplified when they were first written down, and nineteenth-century philologists used it constantly as evidence for what the ancestral language had looked like. The often-quoted comparison is that a Lithuanian peasant could understand fragments of Sanskrit, which is an exaggeration, but the resemblances are real and startling: Lithuanian sunus and Sanskrit sunus for son, dievas and devas for god. Latvian is close to Lithuanian and slightly more innovative. Both languages have small, distinctive name stocks built from ordinary words, and tree and plant names are common in them.
Meaningscholars disagree
Latvian aiva, quince
Aiva is a Latvian and Lithuanian given name from the word for a quince or quince tree. In American records it is far more likely to be a respelling of Ava, whose own derivation is unsettled: proposed sources include a Germanic short form Avo, Latin avis, a bird, and the Hebrew Chavvah. Which applies depends entirely on the family, and the 2014 peak sits with the Ava wave rather than with Baltic immigration.
Pronouncing Aiva
AY-vah
Two syllables, stress on the first. The Latvian name is EYE-vah, with the ai as the diphthong of eye, which is the regular Baltic value. American families use both readings.
Nicknames for Aiva
Moderate
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
- 2002
- Most girls named
- 201467 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #2615reached in 2014
- Change vs 2024
- +20.0%12 in 2025, from 10
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.
Aiva in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Aiva in Latvian — same name
- Ava in English — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, New York.
Aivas among us
people named Aiva are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 133,939 born in 2025 was named Aiva
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Aiva
- #8362
- Aiva on the 2025 chart
- #831
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Aiva went to 12 girls in 2025, but Ayva and Ayvah are the same name said out loud. Together the 3 spellings went to 129, which makes it the 831st most-given girls’ name of the year — 7,531 places above the chart.
About 1 girl in 12,459 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 133,939 for Aiva 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 Sian test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Aiva's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Sian climbed just as high around 1974, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Sian's path sketches the road Aiva is walking now.
Aiva sits in the calm middle of the cycle — neither chasing a wave nor sliding off one. Middle-of-the-cycle names age slowly and predictably.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Aiva beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Aiva in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- It is short and easy to write.
- The Latvian word behind it has a settled and concrete meaning.
- Ava is available as a plainer variant.
- Two readings of the ai digraph circulate.
- Ava is vastly more common and will be assumed.
- The Baltic origin will not be recognized in the United States.
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Aiva
Feminine · #8362 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Aivas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 800 people named Aiva are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Aiva?
- Aiva is one of 3 recorded spellings. Ayva is the more common one — 72 births in 2025 against 12 for Aiva.
- How popular is the name Aiva in 2025?
- Aiva ranks #8362 among US girl names in 2025, with 12 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Aiva?
- About 1 in every 133,939 US girls born in 2025 was named Aiva — 12 in all.
- Will my child share the name Aiva with classmates?
- Aiva will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Aiva
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Lona#8362 · Peggy#8362 · Leda#8362 · Margarette#8362 · Rella#8362 · Evalena#8362 · Vashti#8362 · Nona#8362
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Aiva? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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