Ajah
Feminine · “Hebrew ayyah”
Ajah appears once in the Bible, in a genealogy in Genesis 36, as a son of Zibeon the Hivite, and never again. Names like that, mentioned a single time in a list and given no story, were quarried heavily by English and American readers looking for something nobody else had. The name is a hapax, and its whole biblical career is one verse.
How old is the name Ajah?
Ajah first appears in US birth records in 1978 — 47 years ago. The typical Ajah alive today was born around 2003, making them about 22 years old. About 1,500 people named Ajah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Ajah most popular?
Ajah peaked in 1999, reaching #1688 nationally. Today it ranks #7885, 6,197 places below that high. See the whole 1999 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From ayyah to Ajah
The story of Ajah
Biblical genealogies are dense with names that occur once and carry no narrative, and for four centuries they served English-speaking parents as a private reserve. The Puritans went through them systematically; nineteenth-century American families went through them again; and the practice never entirely stopped. What makes a hapax attractive is exactly what makes it hard to interpret: with no story attached, the name comes without associations, but also without any context that would settle its meaning, since a single occurrence gives a translator nothing to work from. Ajah is one of these. Steely Dan's 1977 album Aja put a similar sound into wide circulation under a different spelling, and the American female name rises in the 1990s, well after that, in the company of Asia, Aja and Aaliyah rather than of anything scriptural.
Meaningscholars disagree
Hebrew ayyah, a falcon or kite
The biblical name is usually connected with Hebrew ayyah, a bird of prey, probably a kite or falcon, the same word that appears in the dietary lists in Leviticus. That reading is reasonable but not certain, and the name is male in its single biblical occurrence. The modern American female name, peaking in 1999, is at least as likely to be a coinage from the Aja and Asia family, in which case the biblical entry is a homograph rather than a source.
How the name formed
- ayyah
- Ajah
Related forms: Ayah · Aja
Pronouncing Ajah
AH-jah
Two syllables, stress on the first, with an English j. The Hebrew name is AY-yah with a y, not a j, since the letter transliterated as j in older Bibles was a consonantal y. The two are the same name only in print.
Nicknames for Ajah
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
- 1978
- Most girls named
- 199997 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1688reached in 1999
- Change vs 2024
- +30.0%13 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.
Ajah in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Ayah in Hebrew — transliteration
- Aja in English — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas.
Ajahs among us
people named Ajah are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 123,636 born in 2025 was named Ajah
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Ajah
- #7885
- Ajah on the 2025 chart
- #903
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Ajah went to 13 girls in 2025, but Aja is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 57, which makes it the 903rd most-given girls’ name of the year — 6,982 places above the chart.
- Aja44
- Ajah13
About 1 girl in 28,198 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 123,636 for Ajah 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 Charita test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Ajah's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Charita climbed just as high around 1983, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Charita's path sketches the road Ajah is walking now.
Ajah 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
Ajah beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Ajah in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Short, symmetrical and easy to write.
- AJ gives an immediately usable short form.
- It has a documented biblical entry, however brief.
- Aja and Asia are near-homophones and both are more common.
- The biblical bearer is male and appears in a single verse.
- The English j pronunciation is not the Hebrew one.
Nobody names a baby alone.
Put Ajah to the vote.
Add it to a family vote or a couple’s swipe deck — the other person gets one card, a simple answer and room to say why. No app, no account for them.
Only the people you invite can see your list.
Already decided on Ajah? Hide it among decoys and let them guess.
What they receive
Someone added a name to your list
Ajah
Feminine · #7885 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Ajahs are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,500 people named Ajah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Ajah?
- Ajah is one of 2 recorded spellings. Aja is the more common one — 44 births in 2025 against 13 for Ajah.
- How popular is the name Ajah in 2025?
- Ajah ranks #7885 among US girl names in 2025, with 13 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Ajah?
- About 1 in every 123,636 US girls born in 2025 was named Ajah — 13 in all.
- Will my child share the name Ajah with classmates?
- Ajah will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Ajah
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Ola#7885 · Loula#7885 · Consuelo#7885 · Santa#7885 · Florentina#7885 · Marty#7885 · Jaye#7885 · Dollie#7885
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Ajah? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Ajah and another name?
See them side by side — full stats, history and a gentle verdict.
Compare side by sideIn a hurry? Just pick a winner — one tap, no sign-up, and you see how everyone else voted.
Weighing a whole shortlist? Add the rest in the builder, or settle it with a bracket.
Cast your vote
Which one would you pick?
Your gut first, the numbers after — the split shows once you pick.
US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
No advertising trackers and no data sellinghow we handle your dataindependent and founder-run, about Name Battle