Daija
Feminine
Daija and Daijah are the same name with and without a silent letter. English does not sound an h at the end of a word — it never has — so the h in the longer spelling is doing purely visual work, borrowed from the Hebrew names that legitimately carry one. Dropping it leaves five letters that say exactly what six said.
How old is the name Daija?
Daija first appears in US birth records in 1986 — 39 years ago. The typical Daija alive today was born around 2000, making them about 25 years old. About 3,000 people named Daija are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Daija most popular?
Daija peaked in 1997, reaching #804 nationally. Today it ranks #14942, 14,138 places below that high. See the whole 1997 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
Origin, sound and short forms
The story of Daija
English has no standard way of writing the consonant at the center of this name. It arrived from French in words like rouge and measure, and it is spelled s, si, g, ge and j depending on the word — which leaves anyone writing it in a name to improvise. American naming improvised energetically from the 1980s onward, and Dasia, Daija, Daijah, Dazha and Daja all appear for the same two syllables. This spelling is the leanest of them and appears from 1986, peaking in 1997.
Meaningnot established
Not established
No derivation is documented. The name was assembled from sound in the later twentieth century, and its resemblances — to Dasia, to Daja, to the -jah ending of Elijah — are resemblances rather than descent. The consonant in the middle is the soft one in measure, a sound English acquired late from French and never gave a letter of its own.
Pronouncing Daija
DAY-zhuh
Two syllables, stress on the first. The middle consonant is the soft one in vision rather than the hard j of jam, which is what the ij is trying to write and what readers meeting it cold generally get wrong.
Nicknames for Daija
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
- 1986
- Most girls named
- 1997258 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #804reached in 1997
- Change vs 2024
- −50.0%5 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.
Daijas among us
people named Daija are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 321,453 born in 2025 was named Daija
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Daija
- #14942
- Daija on the 2025 chart
- #949
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Daija went to 5 girls in 2025, but Daijah is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 11, which makes it the 949th most-given girls’ name of the year — 13,993 places above the chart.
- Daijah6
- Daija5
About 1 girl in 146,115 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 321,453 for Daija 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 Mark test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Daija's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Mark climbed just as high around 1968, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Mark's path sketches the road Daija is walking now.
Daija 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
Daija beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Daija in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Five letters and two syllables, with a soft middle consonant few names carry.
- It is the shortest spelling of this sound in the American record.
- It sits well after long or consonant-heavy surnames.
- The middle consonant has no standard English spelling, so the name is misread constantly.
- Daijah, Dasia and Daja all compete, so dictating the letters is permanent.
- There is no documented meaning, only an account of how the sound came to be written.
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Daija
Feminine · #14942 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Daijas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 3,000 people named Daija are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Daija?
- Daija is one of 2 recorded spellings. Daijah is the more common one — 6 births in 2025 against 5 for Daija.
- How popular is the name Daija in 2025?
- Daija ranks #14942 among US girl names in 2025, with 5 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Daija?
- About 1 in every 321,453 US girls born in 2025 was named Daija — 5 in all.
- Will my child share the name Daija with classmates?
- Daija will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Daija
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Hester#14942 · Lyda#14942 · Zula#14942 · Zona#14942 · Ula#14942 · Belva#14942 · Lucetta#14942 · Leala#14942
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Daija? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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