Chia
given name · Latin script
Meaning, in English: A Mexican sage grown for its edible seeds, Salvia hispanica
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/tʃiːa/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Chia is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Malaysia than in any other country.
- MYMalaysia≈1 in 1.2K(inferred from the name graph)
- SGSingapore≈1 in 3.1K
- AUAustralia≈1 in 40K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- Malaysia (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 298 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 1.2K (inferred from the name graph)
≈27,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Malaysia, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
A Mexican sage grown for its edible seeds, Salvia hispanica.
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested across 3 languages in the etymology graph.
How Chia is read(measured from records)
Chia is one spelling over 3 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 2 of them. Each row is what a source recorded for that language, beside the share of this name’s records the language holds. No single row is the name’s meaning.
- English43%
A Mexican sage grown for its edible seeds, Salvia hispanica.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- Chinese24%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Chia in Chinese.
- Malay15%
a surname from Hakka
as a wordrecorded as Indonesiankaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
The share is ours — how much of this name’s records each language holds. The sense beside it is the source’s, quoted and credited, including where it names a gender. We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Chia counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MY Malaysia | #330 | ≈27,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.2K | — | Chia | 118 |
| CM Cameroon | #511 | ≈5,400 est. | ≈1 in 5.1K | — | Chia | 20 |
| NG Nigeria | — | ≈2,700 est. | ≈1 in 80K | — | Chia | 31 |
| US United States | — | 2,190 | 1 in 152K | 2K | Chia | 298 |
| SG Singapore | #432 | ≈2,000 est. | ≈1 in 3.1K | — | Chia | 174 |
| AU Australia | — | ≈650 est. | ≈1 in 40K | 1 | Chia | 161 |
| CL Chile | — | ≈420 est. | ≈1 in 43K | 1 | — | 1 |
Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; SA BDM — Popular baby names South Australia (1944–present); SRCEI — Nombres más comunes (guaguas, 1920–2021). Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Other recorded senses(measured from records)
Chia is also recorded in 4 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In cdo, same, the white stone button (the 6th official grade)
as a wordDictionary of the Foochow Dialect
In French, third-person singular past historic of chier
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In nci, obsolete spelling of chiyan
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Esperanto, H-system spelling of ĉia
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Guo Jiab. 170CNnot in their usual nameAdviser to the warlord Cao Cao (170-207)
- Wang Jiab. 400not in their usual nameChinese historian
- Yang Fujiab. 1936CNnot in their usual nameChinese nuclear physicist
- He Jiahongb. 1953CNnot in their usual nameProfessor of Law, Writer
- Wai Ka-faib. 1962CNnot in their usual nameHong Kong filmmaker (born 1962)
- Shao Jiayib. 1980CNnot in their usual nameChinese footballer
- Oscar Lib. 1982not in their usual nameHong Kong actor
- Hu Jiab. 1983CNnot in their usual namediver
- Lu Jiab. 1988CNnot in their usual nameChinese Go player
- Liyuub. 1997CNnot in their usual nameChinese cosplayer, singer, and voice actress
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
How to address them(machine-generated)
A formal English salutation is built on the surname, so it needs a full name — on its own, a first name only supports the informal form.
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 47 sources across 25 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 2K | #14,475 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 1.7K | #16,450 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 1.5K | #17,530 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 5
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Cognomix.it (Nomix s.r.l.) — Italian surname origin dictionary
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Chia mean, and where does it come from?
- A Mexican sage grown for its edible seeds, Salvia hispanica. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- How do you pronounce Chia?
- A machine transcription gives /tʃiːa/ (IPA) for English.
- Is Chia a male or female name?
- Chia is recorded for both men and women. We don't publish a percentage split: a record's gender belongs to the person and is attached to every given name on that record, so names in cultures where a name string also carries a parent's or spouse's given name pick up large cross-gender counts.
- In which country does Chia have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 27 thousand people named Chia in Malaysia, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled chia.
- How common is the name Chia?
- In the United States, the national register counted 2,190 people named Chia in 2020, about 1 in 152 thousand residents.
- How common is Chia compared with other names?
- In Malaysia, Chia is the 330th most common given name of 388,685 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Chia?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/chiaThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Chia” — the 330th most common given name in Malaysia. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.