Gaia
From the Greek for "earth". Still rare in Poland, the kind of name most people have never met one of, but it's been climbing lately: more girls took it last year than in most years past.
Gaia Pronunciation
Gaia is pronounced GAH-yah (/ˈgaja/).
What Gaia means
Where Gaia comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Gaia comes straight from Greek, where Gaía was the earth itself. In Hesiod's Theogony she is the first mother, the ground from which the sky and the Titans came. The meaning has not drifted. It still says earth, the word a Polish speaker hears as ziemia.
Italy is where Gaia grew into an everyday name for girls. Dante names a Gaia in Purgatorio, Gaia da Camino, a noblewoman from the region of Treviso, so the name was in use among Italian families in the fourteenth century. It remains common on Italian birth records today.
In Poland the name is rarer. It turns up on a class register or an official form at the urząd as a short, clear choice. Four letters, two of them the same vowel. Whatever else a bearer carries, the name keeps its first sense, the earth itself.
How many people are named Gaia
1 in 41748 women in Poland is named Gaia. 540 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #1279 among female names.
Gaia's popularity over time
24 girls were given the name in 2025, ranking #480 among newborns. It has been climbing since 2000.
Where parents choose Gaia
Gaia is most popular in Masovian, 63% above the national average (38 girls born 2019–2025), followed by Warmian-Masurian (+48%) and Silesian (+40%). It is least common in Łódź and Greater Poland, 76% and 51% below average respectively.
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Masovian
+63%1 in 9,323 babies
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Warmian-Masurian
+48%1 in 10,256 babies
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Silesian
+40%1 in 10,837 babies
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Łódź
−76%1 in 63,359 babies
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Greater Poland
−51%1 in 30,749 babies
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Kuyavian-Pomeranian
−44%1 in 27,345 babies
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Masovian+63% 38 born1 in 9,323 babies+63%
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Warmian-Masurian+48% 7 born1 in 10,256 babies+48%
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Silesian+40% 21 born1 in 10,837 babies+40%
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Lesser Poland+27% 19 born1 in 11,943 babies+27%
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West Pomeranian+8% 6 born1 in 14,071 babies+8%
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Lower Silesian+7% 11 born1 in 14,285 babies+7%
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Lubusz−8% 3 born1 in 16,552 babies−8%
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Subcarpathian−12% 7 born1 in 17,224 babies−12%
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Holy Cross−18% 3 born1 in 18,478 babies−18%
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Lublin−26% 5 born1 in 20,535 babies−26%
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Pomeranian−28% 7 born1 in 21,046 babies−28%
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Opole−34% 2 born1 in 23,048 babies−34%
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Kuyavian-Pomeranian−44% 4 born1 in 27,345 babies−44%
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Greater Poland−51% 7 born1 in 30,749 babies−51%
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Łódź−76% 2 born1 in 63,359 babies−76%
Gaia as a middle name
Gaia is a first name for 540 women in Poland and a middle name for another 68, an 89/11 split. In the women's middle-name ranking it sits 814th, between Felicia (68) and Giulia (68).
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#812 Bernadyna68
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#813 Felicia68
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#814 Gaia68
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#815 Giulia68
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#816 Hiacenta68