Entry № 5438 · Pali origin

Khema Khema — Meaning, Origin & Baby Name Popularity

/ KHEH-mah /
Gender
Girl
Origin
Pali
Meaning
"Safety, peace (Buddha's chief female disciple in wisdom)"
Syllables
2
First recorded
Ancient (Pali)

A name that means "safety, peace (buddha's chief female disciple in wisdom)".

Khema (खेमा) means "safety, peace, refuge" in Pali. Khema was the chief female disciple of the Buddha alongside Uppalavanna — declared by the Buddha as foremost in wisdom (paññā) among the bhikkhunīs. Originally a beautiful queen of King Bimbisara of Magadha, she was so vain that the Buddha showed her a vision of beauty's decay; she became enlightened on the spot.

Featured in the Therigatha and Pali canon.

Safety. The Buddha's chief female disciple in wisdom.

The name in its native script.

खेमा
Transliteration
Khemā
Pronunciation
/ ˈkeɪ.mə /
Root
Grammatical form

Where Khema stands.

Khema does not currently appear in the US Social Security Administration's top 1,000 girls' names, so we don't publish a US rank or birth count for it. That says nothing about the name's standing elsewhere in the world — only that it sits outside the ranked US data we rely on.

Khemas before her.

Real people
Ayya Khema
German-born Theravada Buddhist nun.
1923 – 1997
In fiction
Khema
Featured in the Therigatha.

Names connected to Khema.

The number behind Khema.

2

The Peacemaker

In Pythagorean numerology the letters of Khema reduce to 2, The Peacemaker. This is a traditional interpretive system, not a factual claim about the name.