Takiya
Feminine · “pious”
Taqi is an Arabic word about God-fearing conduct — piety in the practical sense, of someone who holds back from what they should. The feminine is taqiyya, and it is a real name across the Muslim world. It is also, in American records, a member of a large family of women's names built on the -iya ending in the 1970s, and both are present here.
How old is the name Takiya?
Takiya first appears in US birth records in 1974 — 51 years ago. The typical Takiya alive today was born around 2001, making them about 24 years old. About 1,000 people named Takiya are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Takiya most popular?
Takiya peaked in 2002, reaching #2527 nationally. Today it ranks #13208, 10,681 places below that high. See the whole 2002 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From taqwa to Takiya
The story of Takiya
Arabic names entered American use in large numbers from the 1960s onward, and at exactly the same moment American naming was producing its own family of women's names on similar sounds — Takiya, Takisha, Tamiya, Taniya. The two streams are impossible to separate in the data and were often not separate in practice: a family might choose an Arabic name and spell it the American way, or build an American name that happened to land on an Arabic word. The record shows this spelling from 1974 with a long slow peak.
Meaningscholars disagree
pious, God-fearing
The Arabic root w-q-y is about guarding and protecting oneself, and taqwa — the noun built on it — is one of the central words of Islamic ethics, usually rendered God-consciousness. Taqi is one who has it. Whether this American spelling descends from that word or was built from the Ta- prefix and an -iya ending cannot be determined, and both were happening at once.
How the name formed
- taqwa
- Taqiyya
- Takiya
Related forms: Taqiyya · Taqiya
Pronouncing Takiya
tah-KEE-yah
Three syllables, stress in the middle. Arabic gives the q a sound made further back in the throat than the English k, which no American speaker attempts; the k is the standard substitution.
Nicknames for Takiya
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
- 1974
- Most girls named
- 200262 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #2527reached in 2002
- Change vs 2019
- 0.0%6 in 2025, 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.
Takiya in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Taqiyya in Arabic — related form
- Taqiya in Urdu — related form
Takiyas among us
people named Takiya are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 267,878 born in 2025 was named Takiya
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Takiya
- #13208
- Takiya on the 2025 chart
- #945
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Takiya went to 6 girls in 2025, but Takiyah is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 15, which makes it the 945th most-given girls’ name of the year — 12,263 places above the chart.
- Takiyah9
- Takiya6
About 1 girl in 107,151 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 267,878 for Takiya 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 Katrine test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Takiya's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Katrine climbed just as high around 1915, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Katrine's path sketches the road Takiya is walking now.
Takiya 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
Takiya beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Takiya in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- The Arabic word behind it names one of the central virtues of a major tradition.
- Kiya works as a short form and is a standing name here.
- Three open syllables that survive any accent intact.
- It is spelled phonetically for English readers, which many Arabic names are not.
- Takiyah, Taqiya and Takia all appear, so the spelling has to be given.
- The Arabic q is genuinely a different sound from k, so the name is approximated rather than said.
- Two traditions meet at the spelling, so the meaning cannot be stated flatly.
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What they receive
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Takiya
Feminine · #13208 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Takiyas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,000 people named Takiya are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Takiya?
- Takiya is one of 2 recorded spellings. Takiyah is the more common one — 9 births in 2025 against 6 for Takiya.
- How popular is the name Takiya in 2025?
- Takiya ranks #13208 among US girl names in 2025, with 6 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Takiya?
- About 1 in every 267,878 US girls born in 2025 was named Takiya — 6 in all.
- Will my child share the name Takiya with classmates?
- Takiya will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Takiya
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
John#13208 · Vinnie#13208 · Margery#13208 · Jossie#13208 · Tressa#13208 · Erie#13208 · Bernadine#13208 · Euna#13208
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Takiya? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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