- Origin: Ancient Egyptian
- Usage: English, Latin-American Spanish, Brazilian – Portuguese
- Gender: Female
- First Est. 1820s
It comes directly from the Latin and English geographical term Nubia, referring to the ancient region along the Nile south of Egypt — roughly modern northern Sudan and southern Egypt.
The etymology of the place name itself is is from the Ancient Egyptian word, nwb or nub (gold).
The use of Nubia as a personal name arose much later, during the Romantic and colonial periods of the 18th–19th centuries in England, when exotic place-names like Asia, India, Arabia, and Persia began to be used for girls.
In the 20th century, the name gained renewed use in Latin America, particularly in Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, and Mexico, where Núbia or Nubia became moderately common among women born in the 1940s–1970s. It was further popularized in the 1950s by Brazilian singer Núbia Lafayete (1937-2007), whose birth name was Idenilde Araújo Alves da Costa.
In the United States, Nubia experienced a revival among African Americans during the late 1960s, part of a broader cultural movement that embraced African place-names and heritage-inspired names.
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