Miya

Miya carries a Hebrew origin, from the family that also gives Miriam and Mia. That much is settled. The meaning most often listed beside it, temple, shrine, palace, comes from somewhere else. In Japanese the word miya (宮) names a Shinto shrine or an imperial palace, and that sense fastened onto the name later, pulled in by the matching sound.

So the name keeps two languages in five letters. Two homes meet here. On a Polish class register Miya usually stands with no diminutive or variant beside it, just the single form.

For a family the draw is partly the sound, partly this doubling of a Hebrew root under a Japanese meaning of shrine and palace. Nothing in the spelling shows the seam. A child answering to Miya answers to both: the Hebrew root and the Japanese sense of palace.