Keesha
Feminine · “cassia”
Keesha has a better-documented parent than most names of its shape. Keziah is a biblical name — one of the three daughters born to Job at the end of his story — and it is also a plant: the Hebrew word names the cassia tree, whose bark is a spice close to cinnamon. Keesha is one of the ways that name came through English, with the double e fixing a vowel that Keisha leaves open.
How old is the name Keesha?
Keesha first appears in US birth records in 1964 — 61 years ago. The typical Keesha alive today was born around 1979, making them about 46 years old. About 2,600 people named Keesha are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Keesha most popular?
Keesha peaked in 1977, reaching #878 nationally. Today it ranks #14942, 14,064 places below that high. See the whole 1977 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Ketsiah to Keesha
The story of Keesha
Keziah came to America with the Puritans, who took names directly from the Hebrew scriptures and were happy to use obscure ones. It stayed in use in African American families longer and more strongly than in most, and by the twentieth century it had produced Kizzy and Keesha as everyday forms. Those short forms then met the -isha ending, which was becoming productive at the same time from a different source, and the two traditions reinforced each other. That is why the name feels simultaneously old and modern, and why its history genuinely runs in two channels rather than one.
Meaningscholars disagree
cassia; the spice bark
Hebrew Ketsiah names cassia, a bark used as a spice and a perfume, and the Book of Job gives the name to one of three daughters all named for costly and fragrant things. That derivation is solid for Keziah. Whether every Keesha descends from it is another matter: the name also fits the American -isha and -eesha pattern exactly, and many were built on that sound rather than inherited from the Bible. Both roads are real and they arrive at the same spelling.
How the name formed
- Ketsiah
- Keziah
- Keesha
Related forms: קְצִיעָה
Pronouncing Keesha
KEE-shuh
KEE-shuh, two syllables, stress at the front, the first vowel long. The double e settles that vowel completely, whereas the ei in Keisha can be read two ways and regularly is. This spelling is the clearer of the two by a wide margin.
Nicknames for Keesha
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
- 1964
- Most girls named
- 1977164 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #878reached in 1977
- Change vs 2021
- −37.5%5 in 2025, from 8
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.
Keesha in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- קְצִיעָה in Hebrew — transliteration
Keeshas among us
people named Keesha are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 321,453 born in 2025 was named Keesha
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Keesha
- #14942
- Keesha on the 2025 chart
- #948
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Keesha went to 5 girls in 2025, but Kesha is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 12, which makes it the 948th most-given girls’ name of the year — 13,994 places above the chart.
- Kesha7
- Keesha5
About 1 girl in 133,939 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 321,453 for Keesha 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 Ardelle test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Keesha's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Ardelle climbed just as high around 1925, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Ardelle's path sketches the road Keesha is walking now.
Keesha 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
Keesha beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Keesha in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- The double e removes all doubt about the first vowel, which the more common spelling does not.
- It has a genuine biblical parent name available if a longer or more formal version is ever wanted.
- Two syllables, front-stressed, and effortless in any accent.
- Keisha is the more common spelling and this one will be rewritten as that on most documents.
- The name is strongly associated with one generation of American women, and it dates a person fairly precisely.
- The link to Keziah is real but not universal, so a family claiming it should know they are choosing one of two histories.
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Keesha
Feminine · #14942 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Keeshas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 2,600 people named Keesha are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Keesha?
- Keesha is one of 2 recorded spellings. Kesha is the more common one — 7 births in 2025 against 5 for Keesha.
- How popular is the name Keesha in 2025?
- Keesha ranks #14942 among US girl names in 2025, with 5 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Keesha?
- About 1 in every 321,453 US girls born in 2025 was named Keesha — 5 in all.
- Will my child share the name Keesha with classmates?
- Keesha will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Keesha
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 Keesha? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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