Mya
Feminine
Mya is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 62,305 girls against 58 boys since 1880.
Mya is one of the trimmest ways English has found to write a very old sound — the two beats of Maia, the mother of Hermes in Greek myth, cut down to three letters and an open ending. It sits in the mouth the way Kayla and Leah do: no consonant cluster, nothing to trip over, a name you can say across a playground. It is familiar without being crowded, and it charts in France as well as here.
How old is the name Mya?
Mya first appears in US birth records in 1954 — 71 years ago. The typical Mya alive today was born around 2009, making them about 16 years old. About 62,000 people named Mya are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Mya most popular?
Mya peaked in 2009, reaching #97 nationally. Today it ranks #443, 346 places below that high. See the whole 2009 chart.
Where it comes from
From Maia to Mya
The story of Mya
The name behind this spelling runs back to Greek Maia, the eldest of the Pleiades and, in the myths, the mother of Hermes; Roman writers connected her to the month of May. Along a different road entirely, māyā is a Sanskrit word, and Maya has its own long life as a Hebrew name — three traditions that arrived at nearly the same sound independently. The clipped spelling Mya belongs to American record-keeping of the last several decades, part of a broad taste for short vowel-heavy girls' names, and it gained visibility when an American R&B singer used the spelling as her stage name in the late 1990s. It has been strongest in California, Texas and Florida, and it charts in France too, where the Maya family of names is well settled.
Meaningscholars disagree
Generally read as a short spelling of Maya/Maia; the underlying roots compete
Maia is the Greek name of the eldest Pleiad, tied by ancient writers to a word for mother or nurse, and the month of May carries the same name. In Sanskrit, māyā means illusion or magic. Maya is also long established as a Hebrew given name. Separately, mya is the Burmese word for emerald and appears in Burmese names. A three-letter spelling inherits all of these rather than settling them.
How the name formed
- Maia
- Maya
- Mya
Related forms: Maia · Maya · מאיה (Maya) · Maja · Maja · Mia
Pronouncing Mya
MY-ah
Two syllables, stress on the first, rhyming with the second half of Sophia's cousin Maya. A minority of speakers see the spelling and try MEE-ah, mistaking it for Mia — expect to correct that occasionally.
Nicknames for Mya
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
- 1954
- Most girls named
- 20093,415 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #97reached in 2009
- Change vs 2024
- −18.5%697 in 2025, from 855
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.
Mya in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Maia in Greek — same name
- Maya in English — spelling variant
- מאיה (Maya) in Hebrew — transliteration
- Maja in Polish — same name
- Maja in German — same name
- Mia in Italian — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Florida. INSEE rounds every published count to the nearest five for statistical confidentiality; the ranks are calculated from the exact figures. International figures from INSEE. Sources
Myas among us
people named Mya are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 2,306 born in 2025 was named Mya
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Mya
- #443
- Mya on the 2025 chart
- #7
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Mya went to 697 girls in 2025, but Mia, Miah and Miya and the rest below are the same name said out loud. Together the 8 spellings went to 12,213, which makes it the 7th most-given girls’ name of the year — 436 places above the chart.
and 3 rarer spellings.
About 1 girl in 132 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 2,306 for Mya 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 Alison test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Mya's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Alison climbed just as high around 1986, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Alison's path sketches the road Mya is walking now.
Mya is coming down from a big peak (#97 in 2009). This is the stretch of the cycle where a name starts to sound like the decade it ruled.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Mya is headed
Mya is easing off slowly — about 18% fewer babies a year by 2030 if the trend continues.
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.
Mya beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Mya in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Three letters, two syllables, every sound plain in English — a child can write it early and say it clearly.
- Sits inside a large family of related names — Maya, Maia, Maja, Mia — so it reads as recognizable rather than invented anywhere in Europe.
- Charts in France as well as the United States, and the Maya form is at home in Hebrew, Polish, German and Greek.
- Needs no nickname to work, but takes affectionate home forms easily.
- Has been on American records for generations, not a recent coinage.
- The spelling competes with Maya, Maia and Maja, and with Mia beside it. She will likely spell it aloud for life, and forms will sometimes come back with the a added.
- Because the name climbed and is now easing back, its bearers cluster heavily among teenagers and young adults rather than spreading evenly across the generations.
- At three letters it gives little to work with in a long surname or a hyphenated one; the whole name can end up very short. Some parents pair it with a longer middle name for balance.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Mya
Feminine · #443 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Myas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 62,000 people named Mya are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Mya?
- Mya is one of 5 recorded spellings. Mia is the more common one — 11,078 births in 2025 against 697 for Mya.
- How popular is the name Mya in 2025?
- Mya ranks #443 among US girl names in 2025, with 697 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Mya?
- About 1 in every 2,306 US girls born in 2025 was named Mya — 697 in all.
- Will my child share the name Mya with classmates?
- Mya will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Mya
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Alessandra#443 · Gracelynn#442 · Lorelei#441 · Lilliana#445 · Emmy#445 · Payton#440 · Adelynn#447 · Mariah#447
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Mya? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Mya and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration; international figures from national statistics agencies. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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