Kiva
Feminine
Kiva is given to both — 820 girls and 30 boys since 1880. See other names given to both
A kiva is a room. The word is Hopi and it names the circular, usually subterranean chambers used for ceremony and for meeting across the Puebloan south-west, entered by a ladder through a hole in the roof. Some are a thousand years old and still in use, and the great ones at Chaco are twenty meters across.
How old is the name Kiva?
Kiva first appears in US birth records in 1958 — 67 years ago. The typical Kiva alive today was born around 1986, making them about 39 years old. About 800 people named Kiva are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Kiva most popular?
Kiva peaked in 1974, reaching #2497 nationally. Today it ranks #8860, 6,363 places below that high. See the whole 1974 chart.
Where it comes from
Origin, sound and short forms
The story of Kiva
Kivas are one of the defining features of Ancestral Puebloan building and their construction is consistent across a large area and a long period: a circular pit, roofed with beams and earth, entered by a ladder, with a firepit, a ventilation shaft, a deflector stone and a small hole in the floor called a sipapu. The great kivas at Chaco Canyon are enormous, several meters deep and up to twenty across, and some sites have dozens of smaller ones. They were built from roughly the seventh century onward and the form is still in use in the Hopi and Rio Grande pueblos today, which makes it one of the longest continuously used building types in North America. What happens in them is not generally discussed with outsiders, and the archaeological interpretation of the older ones is correspondingly cautious.
Meaningscholars disagree
Not established
Kiva is a Hopi word adopted into English for the ceremonial chambers of Puebloan architecture. As an American given name it is more likely a short form of the Hebrew Akiva, from a root associated with heels or protection, or an independent coinage. Which applies to a given bearer is not recoverable; the name peaks in 1974.
Pronouncing Kiva
KEE-vah
Two syllables, stress on the first. KY-vah with a long i is also heard in American use. The Hopi word is KEE-vah.
Nicknames for Kiva
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
- 1958
- Most girls named
- 197430 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #2497reached in 1974
- Change vs 2024
- 0.0%11 in 2025, from 11
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.
Kiva in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Kiva in Hebrew — related form
Kivas among us
people named Kiva are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 146,115 born in 2025 was named Kiva
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Manon test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Kiva's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Manon climbed just as high around 1928, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Manon's path sketches the road Kiva is walking now.
Kiva 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
Kiva beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Kiva in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Short, distinctive and easy to spell.
- It is unusual without being difficult to say.
- The architectural term behind it is real and checkable.
- It is a Hopi word for a ceremonial space, which some will find inappropriate as a name.
- Two vowel readings circulate.
- Which of several possible sources applies is not recoverable.
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What they receive
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Kiva
Feminine · #8860 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Kivas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 800 people named Kiva are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Kiva in 2025?
- Kiva ranks #8860 among US girl names in 2025, with 11 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Kiva?
- About 1 in every 146,115 US girls born in 2025 was named Kiva — 11 in all.
- Will my child share the name Kiva with classmates?
- Kiva will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Kiva
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Lida#8860 · Lauretta#8860 · Dot#8860 · Bonita#8860 · Benita#8860 · Trixie#8860 · Adna#8860 · Sue#8860
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Kiva? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Kiva and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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