Likely influenced by Arabic Jami'a, meaning 'gathering' or 'comprehensive,' in a modern feminine form.
Jamiya is a modern feminine name most likely derived from Jamie, itself a Scottish and English diminutive of James. James traces a long lineage: from the Late Latin Jacomus, to the Greek Iakobos, to the Hebrew Ya'akov — meaning "supplanter" or, in a more generous reading, "he who follows at the heel," a reference to the biblical patriarch Jacob who grasped his twin Esau's heel at birth.
Over centuries, James became one of the most enduring names in the English-speaking world, borne by six kings of Scotland, two kings of England, two American presidents, and countless literary figures including Henry James and James Joyce. Its diminutive Jamie began to cross gender lines in the mid-20th century, becoming a warm, approachable unisex option, and from Jamie sprang a cluster of feminine elaborations — Jamila, Jamiyah, Jamiya — that added length and softness while honoring the original root. Jamiya is distinctly American in its feel, emerging in the 1980s and 1990s within African American naming culture, which has long been a creative force in inventing names that are both phonetically pleasing and individually distinctive. It carries the familiar resonance of James and Jamie while standing entirely on its own — personal, musical, and self-defined.