Keziah
Feminine · Hebrew roots · “cassia”
Keziah is given to both — 4,889 girls and 197 boys since 1880. See other names given to both
Keziah is one of the three daughters named in the Book of Job, and it means a spice — the fragrant bark of the cassia tree. English Puritans took it up after the Reformation and carried it across the Atlantic, where it turns up in colonial parish registers and family Bibles for generations. Said aloud it has three syllables and a rising middle, closer to a spoken phrase than a single word.
How old is the name Keziah?
Keziah first appears in US birth records in 1972 — 53 years ago. The typical Keziah is a kid of about 11 — this name's wave is very recent. About 4,800 people named Keziah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Keziah most popular?
Keziah peaked in 2025, reaching #766 nationally. Today it ranks #766, exactly where it peaked. See the whole 2025 chart.
Keziah appears on these lists:
Where it comes from
From Qetsi'ah (Hebrew) to Keziah
The story of Keziah
The name appears in the Hebrew Bible, in the closing chapter of Job, where Job's three daughters are named Jemimah, Keziah and Keren-happuch. It stayed a scriptural word until the Reformation sent English-speaking Protestants deep into the Old Testament for names, and Keziah — along with a good many other obscure biblical choices — came into ordinary use in seventeenth-century England. From there it traveled with settlers to North America and the Caribbean, where it was steadily used through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, usually shortened to Kizzy or Kezzie in speech. It has never entirely left the record, and the present rise is a fresh wave on a very old name.
Meaning
cassia — a fragrant, cinnamon-like bark
The Hebrew Qetsi'ah refers to cassia, a spice traded across the ancient Near East. The Greek translators of the Hebrew Bible rendered it Kasia, keeping the spice word intact.
How the name formed
- Qetsi'ahHebrew
- KasiaGreek
- CassiaLatin
- Kezia
- Keziah
Related forms: Ketziah · Kezia · Quézia · Kétsia · Kassia
Pronouncing Keziah
kuh-ZY-uh
The most common American pronunciation stresses the middle syllable: kuh-ZY-uh. Some families say KEE-zee-uh, and the older British reading was kuh-ZY-uh as well. Expect to state your preference more than once.
Nicknames for Keziah
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
- 1972
- Most girls named
- 2025354 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #766reached in 2025
- Change vs 2024
- +13.5%354 in 2025, from 312
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.
Keziah in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Ketziah in Hebrew — transliteration
- Kezia in English — spelling variant
- Quézia in Portuguese — same name
- Kétsia in French — spelling variant
- Kassia in Greek — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, Florida, California.
Keziahs among us
people named Keziah are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 4,540 born in 2025 was named Keziah
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Keziah
- #766
- Keziah on the 2025 chart
- #564
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Keziah went to 354 girls in 2025, but Kezia, Keziyah and Kesia and the rest below are the same name said out loud. Together the 5 spellings went to 433, which makes it the 564th most-given girls’ name of the year — 202 places above the chart.
About 1 girl in 3,712 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 4,540 for Keziah 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 Imelda test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Keziah's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Imelda climbed just as high around 1911, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Imelda's path sketches the road Keziah is walking now.
Keziah 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 Keziah is headed
Keziah looks set to keep climbing gently, with roughly 21% 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.
Keziah beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Keziah in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A settled, concrete meaning — cassia, a spice — with no competing readings to explain.
- A documented line running from the Hebrew Bible through Reformation England into colonial America, unbroken rather than revived from nothing.
- Several short forms already in real use: Kez, Kezzie, Kizzy.
- Recognizable forms in Hebrew, Greek, Portuguese and French, so it survives a border crossing.
- Rare enough in American classrooms that a child is unlikely to share it with anyone.
- Two live spellings, Keziah and Kezia, and at least two pronunciations. Both will need correcting fairly often, and a child will learn to spell it out early.
- Kizzy, the traditional short form, is closely tied to the enslaved character in Alex Haley's Roots. That is a meaningful association for some families and an unwanted one for others — worth deciding how you feel before someone else picks the nickname.
- It is an unmistakably biblical name, and people who know the Book of Job will say so. If you would rather the reference stay quiet, this is not the name that allows it.
- Because the current wave is so recent, most adults who share the name are children. That will change as the generation grows up, but for now it reads as a young name.
Nobody names a baby alone.
Put Keziah to the vote.
Add it to a family vote or a couple’s swipe deck — the other person gets one card, a simple answer and room to say why. No app, no account for them.
Only the people you invite can see your list.
Already decided on Keziah? Hide it among decoys and let them guess.
What they receive
Someone added a name to your list
Keziah
Feminine · Hebrew roots · #766 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Keziahs are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 4,800 people named Keziah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Keziah?
- Keziah is the most-used spelling in US records — 354 of the 433 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Kezia, Keziyah, Kesia and Kesiah.
- How popular is the name Keziah in 2025?
- Keziah ranks #766 among US girl names in 2025, with 354 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Keziah?
- About 1 in every 4,540 US girls born in 2025 was named Keziah — 354 in all.
- Will my child share the name Keziah with classmates?
- Keziah will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Keziah
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Azari#766 · Laylani#768 · Kiyomi#764 · Indy#768 · Elina#764 · Dulce#770 · Christina#770 · Freyja#770
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Keziah? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Keziah and another name?
See them side by side — full stats, history and a gentle verdict.
Compare side by sideIn a hurry? Just pick a winner — one tap, no sign-up, and you see how everyone else voted.
Weighing a whole shortlist? Add the rest in the builder, or settle it with a bracket.
Cast your vote
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
No advertising trackers and no data sellinghow we handle your dataindependent and founder-run, about Name Battle