Kisha
Feminine
Kisha is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 6,652 girls against 12 boys since 1880.
Kisha is Keisha with the vowel cluster removed. Keisha has an ei that can be read two ways and regularly is; Kisha has a single i and cannot be misread. Whether the name comes from a biblical Keziah, from a longer Lakisha, or from the sound alone is a separate question that the spelling does not answer.
How old is the name Kisha?
Kisha first appears in US birth records in 1963 — 62 years ago. The typical Kisha alive today was born around 1977, making them about 48 years old. About 6,400 people named Kisha are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Kisha most popular?
Kisha peaked in 1975, reaching #421 nationally. See the whole 1975 chart.
Where it comes from
Origin, sound and short forms
The story of Kisha
Removing an ambiguous vowel cluster is one of the quieter things a respelling can do and one of the most useful. English has no rule for ei — it says either a long a in vein or a long e in seize — so a name containing it is genuinely unstable, and every family carrying one spends time correcting strangers. Kisha forecloses that. It is a shorter, plainer spelling of a name that was never plain, and it belongs to the same decades as the longer versions rather than following them.
Meaningscholars disagree
Not established
Three roads. Keziah is a biblical name — one of the three daughters born to Job at the end of his story — and the Hebrew names the cassia tree, a spice bark. Lakisha and Nakisha are American formations that clip readily to Kisha. And the -isha ending, ultimately from Arabic Aisha, was fully productive in American naming and could have produced this name with nothing behind it. Each is plausible and none is documented for any particular family.
Pronouncing Kisha
KEE-shuh
KEE-shuh, two syllables, stress at the front, the single i long. Some say KISH-uh with a short vowel, following the spelling more literally, and that reading is heard occasionally. The long reading is by far the more common.
Nicknames for Kisha
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
- 1963
- Most girls named
- 1977476 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #421reached in 1975
- Change vs 2023
- +16.7%7 in 2024, from 6
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.
Kishas among us
people named Kisha are estimated to be alive in the US today
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Kisha sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- It removes the ei ambiguity that the longer spelling never resolved.
- Five letters and two syllables, easy against any surname.
- It works for either child, though it goes overwhelmingly to girls in practice.
- Keisha is the far more common spelling and this one will be rewritten as that.
- Without the e the first vowel can be read short, so the name is occasionally mispronounced in a new way.
- The name is closely tied to one American generation and dates a person fairly precisely.
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Kisha
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Kishas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 6,400 people named Kisha are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Kisha in 2025?
- Kisha is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Kisha with classmates?
- Kisha will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More K names
The most-given names starting with K, all years combined.
Karen#1279 · Kimberly#302 · Kathleen#1150 · Katherine#186 · Kelly#851 · Kathryn#729 · Kayla#364 · Kathy#3249
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Kisha? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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