Kiona
Feminine · “Yakama”
There is a real difference between a place name and a name-book gloss. Kiona is a town in Washington state, recorded from the Yakama language by surveyors who wrote down what they were told, and place names of that kind are generally better documented than the Indigenous meanings attached to personal names in baby-name lists.
How old is the name Kiona?
Kiona first appears in US birth records in 1973 — 52 years ago. The typical Kiona alive today was born around 1997, making them about 28 years old. About 1,600 people named Kiona are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Kiona most popular?
Kiona peaked in 1995, reaching #1819 nationally. Today it ranks #8362, 6,543 places below that high. See the whole 1995 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
Origin, sound and short forms
The story of Kiona
Indigenous place names in North America are documented far more thoroughly than most people expect. Surveyors, ethnographers and later the Board on Geographic Names collected them, linguists have worked on the languages for over a century, and tribal nations have published their own materials. A name attached to a specific place in a specific language can usually be checked. A personal name presented in a baby-name list as meaning something in an unnamed Native American language usually cannot, because there is no such language, there are hundreds of distinct ones, and the gloss was written to fill a field. That distinction matters practically. A family drawn to a name of this kind can look up the place, find the language, and see what the record actually says, which is a very different position from being given a meaning with no source at all.
Meaningscholars disagree
Yakama, brown hills
Kiona is a settlement in Benton County, Washington, and the name is recorded from Sahaptin, the language of the Yakama, usually rendered as brown hills. Place name records of this kind carry more weight than the personal-name glosses that circulate online, because they were collected in the field and are cross-checked against other recordings. Whether American families using the name in the 1990s knew the place or the gloss is a separate question. It peaks in 1995.
Pronouncing Kiona
kee-OH-nah
Three syllables, stress on the second. KY-oh-nah with a long first vowel is also heard. The Sahaptin original has sounds English does not have and any English pronunciation is an approximation.
Nicknames for Kiona
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
- 1973
- Most girls named
- 199578 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1819reached in 1995
- Change vs 2024
- +71.4%12 in 2025, from 7
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.
Kionas among us
people named Kiona are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 133,939 born in 2025 was named Kiona
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Kiona
- #8362
- Kiona on the 2025 chart
- #935
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Kiona went to 12 girls in 2025, but Kionna and Kyonna are the same name said out loud. Together the 3 spellings went to 25, which makes it the 935th most-given girls’ name of the year — 7,427 places above the chart.
- Kiona12
- Kionna8
- Kyonna5
About 1 girl in 64,291 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 133,939 for Kiona 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 Adelyne test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Kiona's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Adelyne climbed just as high around 1914, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Adelyne's path sketches the road Kiona is walking now.
Kiona 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
Kiona beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Kiona in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- The place it names is real and the record is checkable.
- The sound is smooth and easy for English speakers.
- Several natural short forms are available.
- Two pronunciations circulate.
- The gloss is a recorded approximation rather than a translation.
- It is rare enough to need spelling out.
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Kiona
Feminine · #8362 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Kionas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,600 people named Kiona are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Kiona?
- Kiona is the most-used spelling in US records — 12 of the 25 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Kionna and Kyonna.
- How popular is the name Kiona in 2025?
- Kiona ranks #8362 among US girl names in 2025, with 12 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Kiona?
- About 1 in every 133,939 US girls born in 2025 was named Kiona — 12 in all.
- Will my child share the name Kiona with classmates?
- Kiona will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Kiona
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Lona#8362 · Peggy#8362 · Leda#8362 · Margarette#8362 · Rella#8362 · Evalena#8362 · Vashti#8362 · Nona#8362
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Kiona? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Kiona and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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