Indica
Feminine · “Indian”
Indica is not a word from any spoken language: it is the feminine of the Latin adjective for Indian, and it lives almost entirely inside botanical Latin, in names like Mangifera indica, the mango, and Lagerstroemia indica, the crape myrtle. As a girl's name it arrived from a taxonomy rather than from a people.
How old is the name Indica?
Indica first appears in US birth records in 1986 — 39 years ago. The typical Indica is a kid of about 10 — this name's wave is very recent. About 700 people named Indica are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Indica most popular?
Indica peaked in 2021, reaching #3553 nationally. Today it ranks #6325, 2,772 places below that high. See the whole 2021 chart.
Where it comes from
From Sindhu to Indica
The story of Indica
Latin took the Indus from Greek and turned the region into an adjective; eighteenth-century naturalists then made that adjective one of the workhorses of scientific naming, and hundreds of plants and animals carry indica as their species epithet. The word therefore reached English speakers as a label on a plant tag, not as a name on a person. American use is very recent and concentrated in the last fifteen years; its single best year on record is 2021, and it is one of a small group of names whose curve tracks the changing legal and commercial visibility of a particular plant during that decade rather than any older naming tradition.
Meaning
Indian, of India
Latin indicus, indica, indicum, from India, from the Greek rendering of the river Indus, itself from Sanskrit Sindhu, meaning river. The same root gives English India, Indian, indigo and indicum.
How the name formed
- Sindhu
- Indos
- India
- indica
Related forms: Indica · India · Indica
Pronouncing Indica
IN-dih-kuh
Three syllables with the stress on the first. Botanists sometimes say in-DEE-kuh with a classical long i; the English-first version is the usual one for the name.
Nicknames for Indica
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
- 202143 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #3553reached in 2021
- Change vs 2024
- −45.5%18 in 2025, from 33
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.
Indica in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Indica in Latin — same name
- India in English — related form
- Indica in Spanish — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Utah.
Indicas among us
people named Indica are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 89,293 born in 2025 was named Indica
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Jameela test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Indica's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Jameela climbed just as high around 1986, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Jameela's path sketches the road Indica is walking now.
Indica 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
Indica beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Indica in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Instantly readable and spellable in English from the first hearing.
- Has the ready short form Indy, which stands on its own.
- Shares its shape with India and Indiana without being either.
- The word is best known to most adults as one of the two cannabis classifications, and that association is currently the strongest one it carries.
- It names a place from the outside, in a Roman adjective, rather than in any language of India.
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What they receive
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Indica
Feminine · #6325 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Indicas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 700 people named Indica are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Indica in 2025?
- Indica ranks #6325 among US girl names in 2025, with 18 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Indica?
- About 1 in every 89,293 US girls born in 2025 was named Indica — 18 in all.
- Will my child share the name Indica with classmates?
- Indica will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Indica
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Kaye#6325 · Doria#6325 · Karolyn#6325 · Rosaleen#6325 · Roni#6325 · Darian#6325 · Svetlana#6325 · Fanny#6325
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Indica? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Indica and another name?
See them side by side — full stats, history and a gentle verdict.
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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
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