Kaia
Feminine
Kaia is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 20,909 girls against 58 boys since 1880.
Kaia is the Scandinavian Kaja in English dress — a short form of Katarina that has been in everyday use in Norway and Denmark for generations, and a name in its own right in Estonia. In American mouths it comes out as two open vowels with almost nothing in the way, which puts it in easy company with Kai, Maya and Mia. It arrived on US records in the mid-twentieth century and has been climbing steadily ever since.
How old is the name Kaia?
Kaia first appears in US birth records in 1955 — 70 years ago. The typical Kaia is a kid of about 7 — this name's wave is very recent. About 21,000 people named Kaia are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Kaia most popular?
Kaia peaked in 2024, reaching #180 nationally. Today it ranks #193, 13 places below that high. See the whole 2024 chart.
Where it comes from
From Aikaterine to Kaia
The story of Kaia
The line begins with Greek Aikaterine, which traveled north through Latin Katharina and was worn down in Norwegian and Danish speech to Kaja — pronounced with a soft y, and spelled Kaia by families who wanted the sound written out. It stayed largely a Nordic and Estonian name until the late twentieth century, when English-speaking parents took to short vowel-rich names and the Kai- cluster in particular. In the US the spelling Kaia turned up quietly in mid-century records and has grown without ever stopping; American visibility rose further with the model and actress Kaia Gerber. It charts in Canada as well, and remains ordinary in Norway.
Meaningscholars disagree
Two readings compete: a Scandinavian short form of Katarina, or a feminine take on kai, 'sea'
The oldest documented road is Kaja/Kaia as the Nordic pet form of Katharina — which makes its ultimate meaning as unsettled as Katherine's own, traditionally glossed 'pure' through the Greek katharos. Many American parents instead read it alongside kai, 'sea' in Hawaiian and Japanese. Separately, Kaja is an Estonian name and an Estonian word for 'echo'. All three are real; none has ownership of the spelling Kaia.
Cultural footprint
Kaia Gerber (b. 2001) — Model and actress, daughter of Cindy Crawford
Source: Wikidata — the one source on this page that is not an official agency.
How the name formed
- Aikaterine
- Katharina
- Kaja
- Kaia
Related forms: Kaja · Kaja · Kaja · Kaija · Kaja · Kajsa
Pronouncing Kaia
KY-uh
Two syllables, rhyming with the first part of 'kayak' only if you say it KY-ak. A minority of American speakers say KAY-uh, and in Norwegian and Estonian the vowel sits closer to KAH-yah. Expect to state your preference once when you introduce her.
Nicknames for Kaia
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
- 1955
- Most girls named
- 20241,680 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #180reached in 2024
- Change vs 2024
- −3.7%1,618 in 2025, from 1,680
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.
Kaia in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Kaja in Norwegian — spelling variant
- Kaja in Danish — spelling variant
- Kaja in Estonian — same name
- Kaija in Finnish — related form
- Kaja in German — spelling variant
- Kajsa in Swedish — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Florida, Texas. International figures from Statistics Canada. Sources
Kaias among us
people named Kaia are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 993 born in 2025 was named Kaia
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Kaia
- #193
- Kaia on the 2025 chart
- #129
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Kaia went to 1,618 girls in 2025, but Kaiya, Kaya and Caia and the rest below are the same name said out loud. Together the 11 spellings went to 2,288, which makes it the 129th most-given girls’ name of the year — 64 places above the chart.
and 3 rarer spellings.
About 1 girl in 702 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 993 for Kaia 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 Sonja test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Kaia's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Sonja climbed just as high around 1938, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Sonja's path sketches the road Kaia is walking now.
Kaia is climbing fast right now. Steep climbs tend to come with steep descents — the quicker a name arrives, the more firmly it belongs to its moment.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Kaia is headed
Kaia looks set to keep climbing gently, with roughly 20% more babies a year by 2030 if the current curve holds.
High 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.
Kaia beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Kaia in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Short, two syllables, no silent letters — most people can say it after hearing it once.
- Established short forms already in circulation: Kai and Kay both stand alone as names.
- A real Nordic and Estonian name, so it works without translation across Scandinavia and in Canada as well as the US.
- Sits behind a long formal option, Katarina or Katherine, for anyone who wants a longer name on documents.
- The spelling competes with Kaya, Kaiya, Kaja and Kaja/Kaja variants, and all of them sound similar. She will likely spell it aloud fairly often.
- KY-uh and KAY-uh both circulate in the US, so first-day-of-school corrections are part of the deal.
- The name is on a steady upward path and clusters with Kai, Maya and Mia, so it may feel less rare over the years than it does now — familiar company rather than a crowd.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Kaia
Feminine · #193 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Kaias are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 21,000 people named Kaia are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Kaia?
- Kaia is the most-used spelling in US records — 1,618 of the 2,288 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Kaiya, Kaya, Caia, Kaiah, Kaiyah, Kayah and Caiya.
- How popular is the name Kaia in 2025?
- Kaia ranks #193 among US girl names in 2025, with 1,618 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Kaia?
- About 1 in every 993 US girls born in 2025 was named Kaia — 1,618 in all.
- Will my child share the name Kaia with classmates?
- Kaia will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Kaia
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Reese#192 · Everleigh#194 · Alora#195 · Blakely#191 · Molly#196 · Haven#190 · Olive#197 · Tatum#189
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Kaia? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration; international figures from national statistics agencies. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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