Asia is the name of the continent, which the Greeks took from an older word that is usually explained as the Akkadian asu, "sunrise" or "east"; in Greek mythology Asia was one of the Oceanids. As a given name it took off in the United States in the 1980s and 1990s, in step with other place names like India and Dakota. Asia ranked number 221 in 2000, left the top 1000 after 2015 and stands at number 2197 in 2025 with 84 births.