Khadijah
Feminine · Arabic roots · “traditionally read as "early baby”
Khadijah is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 7,596 girls against 7 boys since 1880.
Khadijah is the name of one of the most honored women in Islamic history — a Meccan merchant who ran her own caravan trade before the seventh century was out — and it has been given to daughters, in one spelling or another, ever since. In the mouth it is three unhurried syllables with the weight on the middle one: kah-DEE-jah. In the United States it belongs to a generation now well into adulthood, and it is being picked up again.
How old is the name Khadijah?
Khadijah first appears in US birth records in 1962 — 63 years ago. The typical Khadijah alive today was born around 1994, making them about 31 years old. About 7,500 people named Khadijah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Khadijah most popular?
Khadijah peaked in 1994, reaching #184 nationally. Today it ranks #1427, 1,243 places below that high. See the whole 1994 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Khadīja (Arabic) to Khadijah
The story of Khadijah
Khadijah is Arabic, and its history runs through Khadija bint Khuwaylid of Mecca, a wealthy trader and the first wife of the Prophet Muhammad, revered in Islam as the first person to accept his message. From that point the name traveled wherever Islam traveled, reshaping itself as it went: Hatice in Turkish, Hadiza in Hausa, Khadidja in French-speaking West Africa, Khady in Senegal and Gambia, and Khadijah as the settled spelling across Malaysia and Indonesia. This h-final version is the one that took hold in American English, carried largely by Black American Muslim families in the later twentieth century, and it reached a wider audience through Khadijah James, the magazine-editor lead of the 1990s sitcom Living Single.
Meaningscholars disagree
traditionally read as "early baby, born before term"
The usual explanation traces it to the Arabic root kh-d-j, which concerns premature birth — hence "born early." But the name is pre-Islamic, and scholars do not agree that this root gives its original sense; other readings have been proposed and none has won out. What is certain is the name itself and the woman who made it famous.
How the name formed
- KhadījaArabic
- Khadija
- Khadijah
Related forms: خديجة (Khadija) · Khadijah · Hatice · Khadidja · Hadiza · Hatidža
Pronouncing Khadijah
kah-DEE-jah
Stress the middle syllable. In Arabic the opening is a throaty kh, like the ch in Scottish "loch"; in American English it is usually simplified to a plain k, and both are accepted among speakers.
Nicknames for Khadijah
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
- 1962
- Most girls named
- 19941,615 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #184reached in 1994
- Change vs 2024
- −15.2%151 in 2025, from 178
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.
Khadijah in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- خديجة (Khadija) in Arabic — transliteration
- Khadijah in Malay / Indonesian — same name
- Hatice in Turkish — related form
- Khadidja in French (West Africa) — spelling variant
- Hadiza in Hausa — related form
- Hatidža in Bosnian — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: New York, Texas, California.
Khadijahs among us
people named Khadijah are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 10,644 born in 2025 was named Khadijah
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Khadijah
- #1427
- Khadijah on the 2025 chart
- #570
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Khadijah went to 151 girls in 2025, but Khadija, Kadija and Kadijah are the same name said out loud. Together the 4 spellings went to 424, which makes it the 570th most-given girls’ name of the year — 857 places above the chart.
About 1 girl in 3,791 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 10,644 for Khadijah 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 Lee test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Khadijah's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Lee climbed just as high around 1955, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Lee's path sketches the road Khadijah is walking now.
Khadijah is on its second act. Revived names age gently: the generation that wore them first is far enough away that the name feels classic rather than dated.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Khadijah is headed
Khadijah looks set to keep climbing gently, with roughly 17% 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.
Khadijah beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Khadijah in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Recognized across the Arabic-speaking world, Turkey, West Africa, South Asia and Southeast Asia — a name that needs no explaining in much of the world.
- Continuous documented use since before the seventh century, tied to a figure still named daily in Muslim households.
- Several established short forms — Dijah, Khady, Kadi — so a child has ready options without inventing one.
- The spelling ending in -h is the standard form in Malaysia and Indonesia as well as the US, so it is not an improvised variant.
- It has many legitimate spellings — Khadija, Khadijah, Khadidja, Hatice, Hadiza — so expect to spell it out and to see the wrong version on paperwork now and then.
- The opening kh is often flattened to k, and some people will guess at the middle syllable. A short correction usually settles it for good.
- The name is inseparable from its Islamic history. For many families that is precisely the point; if it is not your tradition, it is worth knowing the association is immediate and strong.
- She is unlikely to meet another Khadijah in her class, which most children enjoy and a few find tiring during the introductions.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Khadijah
Feminine · Arabic roots · #1427 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Khadijahs are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 7,500 people named Khadijah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Khadijah?
- Khadijah is one of 4 recorded spellings. Khadija is the more common one — 258 births in 2025 against 151 for Khadijah.
- How popular is the name Khadijah in 2025?
- Khadijah ranks #1427 among US girl names in 2025, with 151 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Khadijah?
- About 1 in every 10,644 US girls born in 2025 was named Khadijah — 151 in all.
- Will my child share the name Khadijah with classmates?
- Khadijah will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Khadijah
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Sana#1427 · Roslyn#1427 · Evalyn#1427 · Desiree#1427 · Katerina#1427 · Aracely#1427 · Zarah#1427 · Camden#1427
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Khadijah? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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