Ziona
Feminine · “Hebrew”
Zion moved across Jerusalem. It began as the name of the Jebusite stronghold David captured, shifted to the Temple Mount, and by the Middle Ages had been reassigned to the western hill by mistake — where it has stayed, on a hill that was never the original.
How old is the name Ziona?
Ziona first appears in US birth records in 1997 — 28 years ago. The typical Ziona alive today was born around 2011, making them about 14 years old. About 600 people named Ziona are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Ziona most popular?
Ziona peaked in 2007, reaching #3983 nationally. Today it ranks #7885, 3,902 places below that high. See the whole 2007 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Tsiyon to Ziona
The story of Ziona
The second book of Samuel calls the captured Jebusite stronghold the fortress of Zion, and it lay on the eastern ridge, the narrow spur south of the Temple Mount. The name then transferred to the Temple Mount itself and became a way of naming Jerusalem generally, and then the people. By the Byzantine and medieval periods, Christian tradition had attached it to the larger western hill, and that identification stuck: the place called Mount Zion in Jerusalem today is not the hill the Bible means. Archaeology settled the original location in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; the name did not move back. Ziona peaks in America in 2007.
Meaningnot established
Hebrew, of unrecovered meaning — a place name
Tsiyon is the name of a fortified hill in Jerusalem, and its derivation is not established; proposals include a root meaning dry place and one meaning citadel, and it may be pre-Hebrew. Ziona is a modern Hebrew feminine formed from it. The name came to stand for Jerusalem, for the Jewish people and, from the late nineteenth century, for the movement named after it.
How the name formed
- Tsiyon
- Zion
- Ziona
Related forms: ציונה · Zionna
Pronouncing Ziona
zy-OH-nah
Three syllables, stress on the second. Hebrew says tsee-YOH-nah, with the initial letter as ts rather than z, which English does not reproduce.
Nicknames for Ziona
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
- 1997
- Most girls named
- 200739 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #3983reached in 2007
- Change vs 2024
- +116.7%13 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.
Ziona in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- ציונה in Hebrew — transliteration
- Zionna in English — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: North Carolina, Florida.
Zionas among us
people named Ziona are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 123,636 born in 2025 was named Ziona
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Ziona
- #7885
- Ziona on the 2025 chart
- #903
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Ziona went to 13 girls in 2025, but Zionna, Zyonna and Ziyonna and the rest below are the same name said out loud. Together the 6 spellings went to 57, which makes it the 903rd most-given girls’ name of the year — 6,982 places above the chart.
About 1 girl in 28,198 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 123,636 for Ziona 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 Sadaf test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Ziona's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Sadaf climbed just as high around 1987, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Sadaf's path sketches the road Ziona is walking now.
Ziona 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
Ziona beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Ziona in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- It carries a place with a very long and documented history.
- It is soft, three syllables and fits the current rhythm.
- The initial Z makes it visually distinctive.
- The meaning of the place name is genuinely unrecovered.
- The name carries explicit political and religious associations.
- Hebrew and English pronounce the first consonant differently.
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What they receive
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Ziona
Feminine · #7885 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Zionas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 600 people named Ziona are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Ziona?
- Ziona is one of 6 recorded spellings. Zionna is the more common one — 15 births in 2025 against 13 for Ziona.
- How popular is the name Ziona in 2025?
- Ziona ranks #7885 among US girl names in 2025, with 13 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Ziona?
- About 1 in every 123,636 US girls born in 2025 was named Ziona — 13 in all.
- Will my child share the name Ziona with classmates?
- Ziona will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Ziona
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Ola#7885 · Loula#7885 · Consuelo#7885 · Santa#7885 · Florentina#7885 · Marty#7885 · Jaye#7885 · Dollie#7885
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Ziona? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Ziona and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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