Pronunciation: KYE-rah; KYE-ree
Kaira and Kairi are Estonian, (Kaira is also used in Latvia) and are most likely a contraction of Katarina and Maria. Some sources list these names as meaning “passionate” in Latvian, but the Latvian word for “passionate” does not resemble either names. Latvian sources state Kaira is a borrowing from their Estonian neighbors, but have no etymological meaning attached to it. Kaira first appeared in use in Latvia in the 19th-century and is listed on the calendar.
Kairi has also been in use in Finland sporadically since the 1900s.
In recent years, Kairi is associated with a character from Kingdom of Hearts. The creator Tetsuya Nomura claimed the name is from the Japanese kai (海) “sea.”
Sources
- https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Kairi
- http://www.behindthename.com/name/kairi/submitted
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Characters_of_Kingdom_Hearts#Kairi