Likely a modern form related to Khia or Kiya, with roots suggesting nobility, beauty, or seasonal freshness.
Khiya is a variant spelling of Kiya, a name that connects its bearer to one of ancient Egypt's most intriguing and mysterious historical figures. Kiya was a secondary wife of the heretic pharaoh Akhenaten, who ruled Egypt during the Eighteenth Dynasty around 1353–1336 BCE. While Akhenaten's primary consort Nefertiti has become the more famous face of that revolutionary reign, Kiya appears in temple inscriptions and artifacts with titles suggesting unusual intimacy with the pharaoh — she is called "the Greatly Beloved Wife," an epithet of striking tenderness.
Some Egyptologists have speculated, though not proven, that she may have been the mother of the boy-king Tutankhamun. The ancient Egyptian meaning of Kiya is uncertain, as it may have been a shortened form of a longer name or a term of endearment — the ancient Egyptian word for "monkey" (a beloved pet) is sometimes proposed, though many scholars find this unconvincing. What is clear is that Kiya occupied a singular place in the Amarna period court, and her memory was systematically erased after Akhenaten's death, her images overwritten with those of his daughters.
This quality of recovered identity gives the name a kind of retrospective power. In contemporary usage, Khiya and Kiya have been embraced particularly in African American and Egyptian diaspora communities, drawn by the name's ancient African heritage and its euphonious simplicity. The 'Kh' spelling lends it a slightly more exotic visual signature, evoking the ancient Egyptian letter kha and the transliteration conventions of hieroglyphic scholarship.