Gender Unisex | Word/name multiple | |
Kim is a male or female given name. It is also used as a diminutive or nickname for names such as Kimberly, Kimberley, Kimball, Kimiko, or Joakim.
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A notable use of the name was the fictional street urchin Kimball O'Hara in Rudyard Kipling's book Kim. From the early 1900s till the 1960s the name Kim was used in English-speaking countries mostly for boys because of the popularity of this book. Another use of the name in literature is in the opening of Edna Ferber's 1926 novel Show Boat. Magnolia, the female protagonist, names her baby daughter Kim because she was born at the moment when the Cotton Blossom show boat was at the convergence on the Mississippi and Ohio rivers where the states of Kentucky, Illinois and Missouri join giving the acronym KIM. In the 1936 film version of the musical Show Boat, Magnolia's father claims to have invented the name based on the same acronym. Magnolia's mother comments, "Kim, that ain't no name." Despite the popularity of the novel and musical, girls were seldom given the name until the 1960s, but it has since become more common for them than for males.
In Scandinavia Kim can be a diminutive/nickname for Joakim/Joachim, but more often a male name in its own right.
In Russia Ким (Kim) is also a diminutive/nickname for Иоаким (Ioakim). In the early Soviet era, it was also explained as the acronym for Коммунистический Интернационал Молодёжи (Young Communist International).
Politics
Kim Van Marter, politician