Keisha
Feminine
Keisha is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 22,293 girls against 44 boys since 1880.
Keisha is a twentieth-century American coinage, and the honest account is that it was made rather than inherited — which is a real history, not an absence of one.
How old is the name Keisha?
Keisha first appears in US birth records in 1961 — 64 years ago. The typical Keisha alive today was born around 1982, making them about 43 years old. About 21,500 people named Keisha are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Keisha most popular?
Keisha peaked in 1976, reaching #233 nationally. Today it ranks #2719, 2,486 places below that high. See the whole 1976 chart.
Where it comes from
Origin, sound and short forms
The story of Keisha
From the late 1960s, Black American families coined given names in large and well-documented numbers, drawing on a consistent set of prefixes, stems and endings chosen for sound. Keisha is among the most successful of them, rising sharply through the 1970s and peaking around 1977, and it generated a large family of its own — Lakeisha, Lakisha, Nakeisha, Keishla.
Meaningscholars disagree
Not established
No documented origin. The name has been connected to the Hebrew Keziah, a daughter of Job named for the cassia plant, but that link is a later rationalisation. It is better understood as a coinage on productive American elements, with the Kei- opening and -sha ending both widely used in the same decades.
Pronouncing Keisha
KEE-shuh
Two syllables, stress on the first. All the spellings are said identically.
Nicknames for Keisha
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
- 1961
- Most girls named
- 19771,050 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #233reached in 1976
- Change vs 2024
- −8.7%63 in 2025, from 69
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.
Keisha in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Kesha in English — spelling variant
- Keshia in English — spelling variant
- Kisha in English — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: Florida, New York, New Jersey.
Keishas among us
people named Keisha are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 25,512 born in 2025 was named Keisha
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Keisha
- #2719
- Keisha on the 2025 chart
- #860
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Keisha went to 63 girls in 2025, but Keysha is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 100, which makes it the 860th most-given girls’ name of the year — 1,859 places above the chart.
- Keisha63
- Keysha37
About 1 girl in 16,073 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 25,512 for Keisha 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 Dorthy test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Keisha's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Dorthy climbed just as high around 1930, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Dorthy's path sketches the road Keisha is walking now.
Keisha 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
Where Keisha is headed
Keisha looks set to keep climbing gently, with roughly 27% more babies a year by 2030 if the current curve holds.
Medium 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.
Keisha beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Keisha in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- It comes from a documented and deliberate naming tradition, which is a real history in itself.
- It generated a whole family of names of its own, which few coinages manage.
- Two clean syllables with no pronunciation risk.
- It has no inherited meaning, which matters to families for whom that is the point.
- Several spellings are in use.
- It is closely dated to the 1970s and 1980s.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Keisha
Feminine · #2719 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Keishas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 21,500 people named Keisha are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Keisha?
- Keisha is the most-used spelling in US records — 63 of the 100 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Keysha.
- How popular is the name Keisha in 2025?
- Keisha ranks #2719 among US girl names in 2025, with 63 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Keisha?
- About 1 in every 25,512 US girls born in 2025 was named Keisha — 63 in all.
- Will my child share the name Keisha with classmates?
- Keisha will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Keisha
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Ryver#2719 · Kaliana#2719 · Morrigan#2719 · Asher#2719 · Aditi#2719 · Carley#2719 · Betsy#2719 · Emy#2719
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Keisha? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Keisha and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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