Name Awesome

Chima

Boys' name

God knows + know

Chima has been given to 288 babies in the U.S. since 1978. It was used fewer than 5 times in 2025, so it doesn't appear in the latest year's list — today it's a genuinely uncommon pick. Its peak year was 2002, with 14 recorded.

Babies named Chima, 2023

1 in 331,000

Chima over time, 1880–2025

Boys
05101518801900192019401960198020002020

Based on births in the U.S. Babies given the name each year. Hover the chart — or focus it and use the arrow keys — for any year. Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Chima: meaning, origin, and history

God knows + know

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Chima means

Chima means “God knows + know”.

Documented naming usage and pronunciation

Chima is used in Igbo.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 288 boys were recorded with the name Chima between 1978 and 2023. Its highest annual count was 14 in 2002; its best national rank was #3,907 in 1978.

Sources & methodologyReferences, data & attribution

Meaning, origin, and language notes draw on the references below.

American popularity figures use published Social Security Administration records for this exact spelling. Counts below five for a name, sex, and year are omitted.

How common is Chima?

Chima had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 2023, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 2023
1 in 331,000
10 of 3,314,783 births
Among boys only
1 in 171,000
<0.01% of boys
Rank, 2023
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
229,764 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Chima sits on the popularity scale

Rarest published (5 a year)#1 — Liam (20,818)

Chance at least one other child shares the name

If the other children were drawn at random from the 2023 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.

Class of 20Under 1%
Class of 30Under 1%
Grade of 100Under 1%
School of 500Under 1%

Put another way: gather 229,764 children born in 2023 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Chima. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Chimas were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Chima was born before 1999 — so the typical Chima is around 26 today.

Median birth year
1999
About 26 years old
Biggest decade
2000s
31.6% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
51.7%
A modern name
Recorded since 1950
288
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

2000s — 31.6% of all recorded uses (91).

Is Chima rising or falling?

Rank movement and count movement can disagree — the number of distinct names in use keeps growing, so a name holding a steady count still slides down the list. Both are shown.

Rank vs 1 year ago
—
Not ranked then
Rank vs 5 years ago
New entry
Not ranked then
Rank vs 10 years ago
—
Not ranked then
Births vs 10 years ago
—
Not published both years
Share of its own peak
0%
Peak was 2002 (14)
Years since peak
23
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
34.9% average annual change
Best rank ever
#3,907
1978

Spellings of Chima

Chima is not the most common spelling — Chaim is, with 52.1% against Chima's 1.2%.

Grouped by closeness of spelling (up to two letter changes), same sex, with a floor on all-time use. It catches Sophia/Sofia and Aiden/Ayden, and misses spellings that sound alike but look different, like Sean and Shawn.

Where Chima is used

Across 1910–2025, Chima was most concentrated in California — about 1 in — boys, against 1 in 3,075,654 across all states with data. It was least common in New York (1 in —).

00 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1California1 in —
  2. 2New York1 in —

Shading is the share of that state's recorded boys given this name, not the raw count — otherwise the map would just show which states are biggest. Unshaded states have no published records for this period. U.S. birth records suppress state-year counts below 5; state counts therefore don't add up to the national total. Every state links to its full rankings. Chima has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Chima around the world

Where Chima ranks in official birth records elsewhere in the world. Rankings only — the number of births isn’t comparable between places, so it isn’t shown.

  • England & Wales
    2003–2016
    #4,810
    in 2016

Popularity data from Office for National Statistics. ONS data under Open Government Licence v3.0.

Chima by the numbers

The raw record for each sex the name is used for.

As a boy's name

Rank in 2025
Unranked
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
—
Best rank ever
#3,907
1978
Peak year
2002
14 that year
First recorded
1978
Last recorded
2023
All-time count
288
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Chima

Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.

ChiefChikeChisomChironChidiChineduChipperEbrimaChiChinoChicagoChicoChingChidubemChickChibuezeChinChivasChiragChideraChisumChiltonChinonsoChioke

Sibling names for Chima

Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.

Explore around Chima

Top names of 2002, Chima's peak yearThe 2000s in fullOther names that peaked in 1978Boys' names starting with CIgbo Boy Names