Issa
The boy's name Issa has been in the national records since 1969, with 3,217 births to its name. It is given to both boys and girls. In 2025 it ranked 1,677th. About 3,200 Issas are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 11.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Issa boys named Issa
Girls and boys called Issa
years more girls than boys years more boys than girls
Both, throughout, without either side ever taking it over: 929 girls and 2,288 boys in all, and in 2025 the split was 59 to 98.
The girls’ share of each year’s babies of the name, in the 38 years in which at least 25 babies got it. The line touches the middle more often than there are crossings marked: a year or two on the other side is not a name changing hands, and only a move that holds for 5 counted years and reaches 60/40 is recorded as one. All 581 names that changed sex.
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 3,217
- Estimated living today
- 3,200
- Median age today
- 11
- Peak year
- 2024
- Best rank
- 1,530th
- Rank in 2025
- 1,677th
- First recorded
- 1969
- Girls / boys
- 929 / 2,288
How old the living Issas are
born that year still alive today
Of the 3,217 babies given the name since 1969, about 3,200 are alive — 98 in every hundred. Roughly 2,100 of them are children and 0 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 2014 and half after.
An estimate, not a count. SSA births aged forward through SSA cohort life tables, which know nothing about who left the country or arrived in it — so for a name that mostly came to America rather than being born in it, this is a floor rather than a figure. Where you fall among living Americans.
Where the name comes from
Origin Arabic
From Arabic عيسى (“Jesus”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Issas
- Issa Rae (born 1985)American actress, writer and producer
- Issa Kaboré (born 2001)Burkinabè association football player
- Issa Pliyev (1903–1979)Soviet general
- Issa Hayatou (1946–2024)Cameroonian basketball player and football executive
- Issa Laye (born 1997)Qatari footballer
- Issa Ba (born 1981)Senegalese footballer
- Issa Serge Coelo (born 1967)Chadian film director
- Issa Ndoye (born 1985)Senegalese footballer
People named Issa with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Issa is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Issa is most concentrated in California (3.2×), Michigan (3.1×), New York (2.9×), Texas (1.9×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 2024
The most popular boys’ names the year Issa peaked:
Issa elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| France boys | Issa +4 spellings | 11,935 | 81st |
| England and Wales boys | Issa | 926 | 539th |
| Belgium boys | Issa | 905 | 127th |
| Switzerland boys | Issa | 171 | 380th |
| England and Wales girls | Issa | 28 | 3,117th |
| Ireland boys | Issa | 13 | 657th |
| France girls | Issa | 10 | 7,436th |
| Ireland girls | Issa | 3 | 856th |
| Scotland boys | Issa | 3 | 762nd |
Counts come from each country's own records and are not comparable with the US figures above, which cover different years and a different definition of a recorded name. Where a country writes the name several ways, the spellings are added together and the most common is shown. A row marked name registrations is counting something else: Portugal ranks each of a child's two given names separately, so a girl registered Maria Leonor is in both the Maria row and the Leonor row, and that figure is not a number of children.
Issa: births by region
| Region | Country | Spelling | Births | Share of the region | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| German boys | Switzerland | Issa | 59 | 0.005% | 774th |
| French boys | Switzerland | Issa | 111 | 0.026% | 128th |
| Italian boys | Switzerland | Issa | 1 | 0.002% | 182nd |
Parts of a country counted above, not extra births. The share is what makes the regions comparable: they differ in size by a factor of three hundred.
By canton, Issa is most concentrated in Geneva, where 0.05% of children were given it – 48 of them.
Issa: rank by region
In 2025, Issa was given 5 times or more in 3 regions of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flanders | Issa | 188 | 31 |
| Wallonia | Issa | 132 | 22 |
| Brussels | Issa | 24 | 27 |
In 2025, with the country taken in 11 areas rather than 3, Issa appears in the lists for Brussels-Capital Region (24th), Province of Flemish Brabant (69th), Province of Liège (106th), Province of Antwerp (139th) and Province of Hainaut (174th).
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children – and published nothing after. So a region missing here is one where the name fell outside what was published, not one where it went unused. Places are shared where names tie, and the further down a list a place is, the more names can share it.
Issa by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin boys | 2017–2023 | 111 | 154th |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Issa among the living
How many people each country's register counts under the name, rather than how many were given it in any one year. Each register was read on one date, and they are not the same date.
| Country | Spelling | First forename | Any forename |
|---|---|---|---|
| Finland boys | Issa | 22 | 46 |
| Finland girls | Issa | — | 20 |
A count of people on a register – Finland on 4 August 2026 – and not of births, so it cannot be compared with the figures above. Names with very few bearers are withheld, and a dash in the first-forename column means the register would not say rather than that nobody goes by it.
Where Issa lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 1,374 men called Issa were living in Spain on 1 January 2025, of every age, born in any year. Where they live is not spread evenly.
Men: the provinces where it is densest
| Province | Spelling | People | Per thousand | Place there |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lleida | Issa | 74 | 0.314 | 340 |
| Almería | Issa | 108 | 0.275 | 358 |
| Huesca | Issa | 30 | 0.256 | 325 |
| Girona | Issa | 105 | 0.252 | 381 |
| Ceuta | Issa | 10 | 0.237 | 422 |
| Huelva | Issa | 61 | 0.228 | 355 |
Listed in 40 of Spain's 52 provinces. In the other 12 it is either held by fewer than 5 people – the point below which the source withholds a name – or it fell past the 5,000 names the source will print for one province. Neither means nobody there is called it. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.
Related names
Issa against another name
Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.
Try it on yourself
Source: US Social Security Administration, national and state baby-name files, 1880–2025. Counts include only births registered with the SSA, and names with fewer than five births in a year are not published. The living estimate applies SSA cohort life tables to those births; it counts people born in the United States, so it misses anyone who arrived later and anyone who has left.