How popular is the baby name Ali in the United States right now? How popular was it historically? Use the popularity graph and data table below to find out! Plus, see all the blog posts that mention the name Ali.
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According to the Ministry of Digital Development of the Kyrgyz Republic, the most popular baby names in the country last year (as of December 20th) were Saliha and Muhammad.
Here are Kyrgyzstan’s top 10 girl names and top 10 boy names of 2021:
Girl Names
Saliha, 3,107 baby girls
Ryana, 2,864
Amina, 2,604
Fatima, 2,436
Aylin, 2,383
Aliya, 2,040
Safiya, 1,968
Aruzat, 1,928
Khadija, 1,894
Alfiya, 1,731
Boy Names
Muhammad, 4,537 baby boys
Omar, 4,132
Ali, 2,632
Amir, 2,164
Bilal, 2,129
Alikhan, 2,112
Alinour, 2,063
Nour-Islam, 1,910
Emir, 1,681
Othman, 1,481
And here’s what the transcribed Kyrgyz names above look like in Cyrillic script:
Looking for a pair of baby names that are mirror images of one another? If so, check out this long list of palindromic name pairings.
What’s a palindrome? It’s a word or phrase that can be read the same way in either direction, i.e., both forwards and backwards. For instance, the words “level,” “refer” and “pop” are all palindromes.
Each of the hundreds of pairings below features two names that contain the same sequence of letters, just written in opposite directions. (Nearly all of these names were collected from the SSA’s huge database of U.S. baby names.)
It’s also possible to come up with your own palindromic pairs by flipping traditional names to create brand new names, just as Ramon and Helen were flipped to create the modern names Nomar and Neleh.
In 1971, a list of African names published in Jet magazine had an impact on U.S. baby names.
In 1977, a list of African names published in Ebony magazine had a similar impact on U.S. baby names.
And in between, in 1973, a list of African names was published in an interesting place: U.S. newspapers nationwide. That is, not in a magazine written for an African-American audience specifically.
African names in U.S. newspapers, Aug. 1973
So…did this newspaper-based list have an impact as well?
Yes, turns out it had roughly the same impact as the other two lists.
The opening line of the article was: “Here’s help for young black couples wanting to give their infants African names.” Toward the end, the article featured a list of 23 names. Most of these names ended up seeing movement in the data, including 10 (!) debuts.
The article cited as its source The Book of African Names (1970) by Chief Osuntoki. As it turns out, though, the Chief wasn’t a real person. He was a fictional character invented by the publisher, Drum and Spear Press. Here’s a quote from the book’s introduction, purportedly written by the Chief:
It is strange, indeed, it hurts my heart, that brothers from afar often come to greet me bearing such names as “Willie”, “Juan” and “François”. But we can not be hard against them, for they have been misled.
Of the 23 names listed above, the one that debuted most impressively was Jelani. In fact, Jelani ended up tied for 43rd on the list of the top boy-name debuts of all time.
1976: 55 baby boys named Jelani
1975: 46 baby boys and 6 baby girls named Jelani [debut as a girl name]
1974: 53 baby boys named Jelani
1973: 36 baby boys named Jelani [overall debut]
1972: unlisted
1971: unlisted
Which of those 23 names do you like best?
Sources:
“African chief explains symbolism of names.” San Bernardino County Sun 15 Aug. 1973: B-4.
Markle, Seth M. A Motorcycle on Hell Run: Tanzania, Black Power, and the Uncertain Future of Pan-Africanism, 1964-1974. East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press, 2017.
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