Kimia
Feminine · “Persian "alchemy”
Kimia is a Persian word with an unusually good story: it means alchemy, and by extension something so rare that it is almost impossible to find. The word traveled the other way too — Arabic al-kīmiyāʾ took it from Greek and gave English the words alchemy and chemistry. Kimia is that word used as a name.
How old is the name Kimia?
Kimia first appears in US birth records in 1980 — 45 years ago. The typical Kimia alive today was born around 2004, making them about 21 years old. About 600 people named Kimia are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Kimia most popular?
Kimia peaked in 1992, reaching #4382 nationally. Today it ranks #6838, 2,456 places below that high. See the whole 1992 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From khymeia to Kimia
The story of Kimia
Persian naming draws heavily on the classical poetic vocabulary, and words that appear in Hafez, Saadi and Rumi are a standing source of given names — Setareh, Shirin, Nastaran, Kimia. The name has been in wide use in Iran through the twentieth century and traveled with the Iranian diaspora to the United States, Canada and Western Europe after 1979. The 1992 American peak sits inside that diaspora's second generation rather than in any general fashion cycle, which is why the name has stayed small and steady rather than rising and falling.
Meaning
Persian "alchemy; something exceedingly rare and precious"
From Persian kimiā, borrowed from Arabic al-kīmiyāʾ, which is generally traced to Greek khymeia, the art of melting and alloying, possibly reinforced by an Egyptian word for the black land. In Persian poetry kimia carries the sense of the philosopher's stone and therefore of anything vanishingly rare — Hafez and Rumi both use it that way. The name takes the poetic sense, not the laboratory one.
How the name formed
- khymeia
- al-kīmiyāʾ
- kimiā
- Kimia
Related forms: کیمیا · Kimya · Kimya
Pronouncing Kimia
kee-mee-AH
Persian stresses the final syllable: kee-mee-AA, three syllables all fully pronounced. American speakers usually say KIM-ee-uh, with a short first vowel and front stress, which changes the word noticeably. The first vowel should be a long EE.
Nicknames for Kimia
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
- 1980
- Most girls named
- 200024 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #4382reached in 1992
- Change vs 2024
- −11.1%16 in 2025, from 18
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.
Kimia in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- کیمیا in Persian — same name
- Kimya in Persian (transliteration) — transliteration
- Kimya in Turkish — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: California.
Kimias among us
people named Kimia are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 100,454 born in 2025 was named Kimia
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Kimia
- #6838
- Kimia on the 2025 chart
- #936
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Kimia went to 16 girls in 2025, but Kimya is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 24, which makes it the 936th most-given girls’ name of the year — 5,902 places above the chart.
- Kimia16
- Kimya8
About 1 girl in 66,969 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 100,454 for Kimia 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 Leonda test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Kimia's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Leonda climbed just as high around 1951, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Leonda's path sketches the road Kimia is walking now.
Kimia 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
Kimia beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Kimia in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- The meaning is settled, poetic and genuinely unusual — few names mean "rare beyond finding".
- It has a documented literary pedigree in Persian poetry.
- Mia and Kimi are both ready-made short forms.
- American speakers default to KIM-ee-uh, which loses the Persian shape.
- It will be assumed to be a form of Kimberly.
- Kimia and Kimya are both used and neither is dominant in English.
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What they receive
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Kimia
Feminine · #6838 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Kimias are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 600 people named Kimia are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Kimia?
- Kimia is the most-used spelling in US records — 16 of the 24 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Kimya.
- How popular is the name Kimia in 2025?
- Kimia ranks #6838 among US girl names in 2025, with 16 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Kimia?
- About 1 in every 100,454 US girls born in 2025 was named Kimia — 16 in all.
- Will my child share the name Kimia with classmates?
- Kimia will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Kimia
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Malana#6838 · Jeannie#6838 · Maxie#6838 · Nicol#6838 · Chaney#6838 · Keana#6838 · Concetta#6838 · Pheobe#6838
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Kimia? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Kimia and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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