Chaja
Fewer than 70 women in Poland carry it, all of them women, so most Poles will never meet one. The name is Hebrew and means "life".
Chaja Pronunciation
Chaja is pronounced KHAH-yah (/ˈxaja/).
What Chaja means
Where Chaja comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Chaja comes from Hebrew, from chai, the word for "life." In English the short meaning is simply "life." The name belongs to the feminine form chaya, a living one, and it sits close to the masculine Chaim. Jewish families carried it across Poland for centuries.
That closeness to "life" was not decorative. Chaja was sometimes given as a protective name to a sick child, a way of calling life toward the one who bore it. The same Hebrew root stands behind the toast l'chaim, "to life."
In a prewar Polish school register, Chaja sits among surnames like Rozenberg and Sztajn, a first name doing plain work. Today it is rare in Poland. The feminine chaya and the masculine Chaim grow from one root. What stays fixed is the meaning: życie, life.
How many people are named Chaja
1 in 331527 women in Poland is named Chaja. 68 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #4385 among female names.
Chaja's popularity over time
Fewer than 2 girls were given the name in 2025. It has been stable for a decade.
Chaja as a middle name
Chaja is a first name for 68 women in Poland and a middle name for another 15, an 82/18 split. In the women's middle-name ranking it sits 1899th, between Carlota (15) and Chiedza (15).
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#1897 Caitlin15
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#1898 Carlota15
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#1899 Chaja15
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#1900 Chiedza15
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#1901 Cleo15