Jada is usually understood as a form of Jade, the green gemstone whose name comes from the Spanish piedra de ijada, "stone of the flank", because it was thought to cure kidney pain; it is also spelled like a minor biblical man whose Hebrew name means "he knows". Actress Jada Pinkett Smith made it a household name in the 1990s. Jada was a top 100 name from 2000 on, peaked at number 75 in 2001, slid to 302 by 2015, left the top 1000 in 2023 and ranks 1201 in 2025.