Kiana is a modern name with more than one source: in Hawaii it is used as a local form of Diana and so carries the meaning "divine" or "heavenly", while in Persian it is a word for the elements of nature. The name spread across the United States in the 1980s and 1990s on the wave of Hawaiian-sounding girls' names. Kiana ranked number 276 in 2000, fell as low as number 970 in 2015 and has been recovering since, to number 743 in 2025.