Entry № 5508 · Pali origin

Kisa Kisa — Meaning, Origin & Baby Name Popularity

/ KEE-sah /
Gender
Girl
Origin
Pali
Meaning
"Mustard seed parable nun (Kisa Gotami)"
Syllables
2
First recorded
Ancient (Pali)

A name that means "mustard seed parable nun (kisa gotami)".

Kisa (Pali: "thin"). Kisa Gotami was the Buddhist nun central to one of the most famous parables in Buddhism. When her young child died, she carried his body across the city begging anyone for medicine to revive him. The Buddha told her he would help if she brought him a mustard seed from any house that had never known death. Going house to house, she found none — and so understood the universality of suffering. She returned, buried her son, and joined the Sangha.

Among the most beloved figures of early Buddhism.

The mustard seed nun. Sought to revive her dead son until she understood death's universality.

The name in its native script.

किसा गोतमी
Transliteration
Kisā Gotamī
Pronunciation
/ ˈkiː.sə /
Root
Grammatical form

Where Kisa stands.

Kisa 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.

Kisas before her.

Real people
Kisa Gotami
Buddhist arhat-nun.
5th c. BCE
In fiction
Kisa
Therigatha.

Names connected to Kisa.

The number behind Kisa.

4

The Builder

In Pythagorean numerology the letters of Kisa reduce to 4, The Builder. This is a traditional interpretive system, not a factual claim about the name.