Is it naianoia when you start seeing Nayas and Naias everywhere?
Exhibit A: Naya Shoes
A newish line of women’s shoes that are, according to the official story, “beautiful on your feet, soft on your step and gentle on the environment.” The official story also claims that “Naya means renewal,” but doesn’t specify in which terrestrial language. Anyone have a suggestion? (UPDATE: In a tweet, a Naya Shoes spokesperson informed me that the language is Hindi.)
Despite the spurious-sounding name story, I confess I’m very fond of Naya shoes. My next pair:
Naya “Tova,” at Zappos. I like saying “Naya Tova”; it sounds like a Jewish greeting.
Exhibit B: Naia wine.
According to Wine.com, this Spanish white wine has a “great nose of lanolin, vanilla biscuits, lemon curd and minerals.”
Exhibit C: Gelateria Naia
A Bay Area chain of gelato shops; the first shop opened in 2002. According to the About page:
Naia has many meanings, in Greek it means “flowing” and “pure,” but to us, it also has a special meaning. Naia is the name of one of the owner’s daughter [sic], who was born at the same time our first store opened.
The grammar is shaky, but this etymology is plausible. In Greek mythology a naiad was a water nymph; the root word is νάειν (“to flow”), Nāïas in Latin. Is “Naya” a popular baby name in modern-day Greece? I don’t know.
Exhibit D: Naya Body Care
Not just organic—solar-powered, vegan, sustainable, and handcrafted, too! Also “MindFUL and thoughtFUL.” No name-origin story, but lots of exclamation points. Based in Marin County, California.
Exhibit E: Naya Rivera
Actress Naya Rivera in costume as Santana Lopez on “Glee.” Photo from PopTower.
And that doesn't include acronyms like the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics or Ninoy Aquino International Airport (in Manila).
Besides “renewal” and “flowing,” Naya is reputed to mean “captain” (in “Indian,” whatever that means), “new” (in Arabic), and “God answered” (in Hebrew). All of these purported meanings come from popular baby-name sites, and are accompanied by the usual surfeit of romance and lack of scholarly rigor.
My own two cents: I think parents and marketers alike just like the sound and ambiguously exotic look of “Naya” and “Naia,” and they ascribe whatever meaning they like to it.
According to the Baby Name Voyager*, neither “Naya” nor “Naia” has ranked among the top 1,000 names given to babies born in the United States since recordkeeping began, in the 1880s. (“Naya” was ranked #1,720 in the decade 2000-2009, according to BNV’s sister blog, Baby Name Wizard. The statistics come from the Social Security database.) However, both “Maya” and “Maia” have been popular in the last several decades; “Maya” did not crack the top 1,000 at all in the 1970s, but has been the top 100 since the 1980s. The “Maia” spelling is less common, but it’s been holding strong in the top 1,000 since the 1990s. Maybe “Naya” is just the new “Maya”?
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* Warning: Highly addictive.
"Na ja" is also a German slang-ish expression for "well" or "sure," IIRC. So I can't imagine these names travel all that well - it's as if a German company had a product called "Yeahbut."
P.S. "usual surfeit of romance and lack of scholarly rigor" - you couldn't have captured more accurately the hooey some of those baby name sites put forth as name definitions (e.g., Nevaeh is Hebrew for life? Try reading it backwards . . . )
Posted by: Jessica | February 02, 2011 at 08:01 AM
There's also NAYA Natural Spring Water, since 1986. The website writes it in all caps, but doesn't explain why with any kind of etymology.
Posted by: Neal Whitman | February 02, 2011 at 08:52 AM
My friends have a girl named Nyah. I wonder how many other spelling variants there are.
Posted by: Jonathon | February 02, 2011 at 11:11 AM
@Neal: Thanks for the reminder about Naya water, which calls itself "the number one Canadian spring water in the world." (http://www.bottledwaterweb.com/bottlersdetail.do?k=57) A Brandweek article published just over a year ago said that Naya "had all but disappeared from the U.S. market" but was positioning itself for nationwide expansion. http://bit.ly/hsXmJi
The Wikipedia entry for Naya water, which is suspiciously light on citations and copyediting, claims that the source of the name is "naiads."
Posted by: Nancy Friedman | February 02, 2011 at 12:44 PM
In Italian, "naia" (also spelled "naja") is an informal word for "military conscription" and "military life". A wine named "naia" would make Italians think of some kind of plonk!
Posted by: Licia | February 02, 2011 at 01:53 PM
Maybe Naya could be the new nickname for Nancy. I was glad to see you had Naya Rivera there...I think she is probably the smokin' hot engine behind the Naya craze...
Posted by: Nancy Davis Kho | February 03, 2011 at 07:37 AM