Tisa
Feminine
Tisa is the Swahili word for nine. That is a real and checkable fact rather than a name-book invention, and Swahili numbers are used as names occasionally in East Africa. It is not, however, where most American examples come from: the likelier source here is the tail of a longer American name, cut loose in the ordinary way.
How old is the name Tisa?
Tisa first appears in US birth records in 1948 — 77 years ago. The typical Tisa alive today was born around 1972, making them about 53 years old. About 1,400 people named Tisa are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Tisa most popular?
Tisa peaked in 1970, reaching #910 nationally. See the whole 1970 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From An Arabic numeral borrowed into Swahili to Tisa
Our story of Tisa
Swahili numbers are worth a note because they are a good illustration of how a language records its history. The words for one to five and eight are Bantu; six, seven and nine are Arabic borrowings, taken in along the coast during centuries of trade across the Indian Ocean. A language that borrows numbers is a language whose speakers were counting things with somebody else, in this case merchants and sailors from Arabia and the Gulf, and the gaps in the sequence map the trade almost as clearly as a document would. This name shares its letters with one of the borrowed ones. Whether any American family knew that is undocumented and unlikely, and the honest account here is a clipping with a coincidence attached.
Meaningnot established
Not established
The Swahili word means nine and is not in doubt, but there is no evidence that American families were drawing on it. The likelier account is a clipping of a longer name ending in the same sound, which would mean the name carries no meaning at all. Two answers are available and only one of them describes the certificates in question.
How the name formed
- An Arabic numeral borrowed into Swahili
- American names ending in the same sound
- The tail cut loose as a name of its own
- Tisa in the registers from the mid-century
Related forms: Tisa
Pronouncing Tisa
TEE-suh
Two syllables, stress on the first. Swahili says it with a fuller final vowel and roughly the same stress, since Swahili places the weight on the second-to-last syllable of almost every word.
Nicknames for Tisa
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
- 1948
- Most girls named
- 1970144 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #910reached in 1970
- Change vs 2016
- 0.0%5 in 2021, from 5
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.
Tisa in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Tisa in Swahili — same name
Tisas among us
people named Tisa 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
Tisa 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 is short, soft and easy for speakers of almost any language.
- It is a real word in a real language, which most four-letter coinages are not.
- It is genuinely uncommon while being entirely unproblematic to say.
- The Swahili meaning is a number, which is a curious thing to carry.
- Most American examples are probably clippings rather than borrowings.
- It will be written Teesa or Tissa by people taking it from speech.
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Tisa
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Tisas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,400 people named Tisa are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Tisa in 2025?
- Tisa is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Tisa with classmates?
- Tisa will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More T names
The most-given names starting with T, all years combined.
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Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Tisa? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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