Imani

given name · English · Latin script

Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise

Imani is a given name, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country. It appears chiefly in English and Swahili, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: faith, belief.

rarermore common
  • TZTanzania1 in 2.6K◐
  • USUnited States1 in 17K
  • NLNetherlands1 in 47K

carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.

≈21K ●

across 10 countries

Sources
325 ●

66K records

Official registry-verified

1 in 17K ◐

United States

Meaning & origin●

faith, belief

Sources 1

  • kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

Attested across 3 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world●

Sorted by bearers counted by national registers, records where none counts.

Where Imani is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
US United States—20,11156K rec.1 in 17K20KImani325
TZ Tanzania#1805,1233.1K rec.——Imani36
NL Netherlands—2,564163 rec.—376Imani23
CA Canada—744429 rec.—3Imani31
GB United Kingdom—700659 rec.——Imani79
BE Belgium—634151 rec.—14Imani15
MY Malaysia—623761 rec.——Imani22
FR France—545△1 rec.1 in 124K545—3
KE Kenya—539320 rec.——Imani23
AU Australia—293555 rec.——Imani40
NG Nigeria—281458 rec.——Imani24
IN India—217239 rec.—58Imani16

Roughly 20K people in United States bear this name (about 1 in 17K). Estimates project the name's share of our records onto national population, so each is only as good as the record base beside it — the Basis column gives that base; rows marked △ rest on fewer records than the estimate itself and are order-of-magnitude at best.

Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table. How that works.

Languages●

  • English57K65%
  • Swahili6.4K7%
  • Spanish3.6K4%
  • French3.2K4%
  • 3.2K4%
Show as table
Languages in which the name is recorded
NameRecordsNote
English56,58965%
Swahili6,4467%
Spanish3,6414%
French3,1954%
3,1574%

Language is read off each record's context, not declared by the bearer; a share is of all records for this spelling.

Other names spelled this way◐

Imani is also recorded as 5 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Indonesian given name5.0K records spelled Imani3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Malaysia, United States, Indonesia, Tanzania

    Languages: Indonesian, Malay

    Also written Imani'

  • French given name4.5K records spelled Imani5 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, United States, Tanzania, Belgium

    Also written Imànî, Imanï, Ïmâni

  • a separate given name3.8K records spelled Imani5 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in India, United States, Morocco, Iran

    Also written Īmānī, Imânî, Īmani, Imăni

  • Japanese given name390 records spelled Imani3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Japan, Tanzania, Malaysia

    Also written Imaní, Imáni

  • Croatian given name333 records spelled Imani9 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Kazakhstan, Russia, Tanzania

    Languages: Croatian, Macedonian, Bulgarian

    Also written Имани, Imany

52 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses●

Imani is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • In English, Swahili, 'faith'

    as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…

  • In Swahili, Kiswahili: faith

    as a nameAfrican Names

  • Faith, belief, religion.

    as a nameThe African book of names

  • faith

    as a nameWhats in a name = Unaitwaje a Swahili book of names

  • In Hausa, faith, belief (especially in Islam)

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.

Over time●

05001K1.5K1970198019902000201020201.2K · 1998

Show as table
Imani in SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present), United States, 1970–2025
Yearrecords
19709
197115
197221
197329
197432
197525
197625
197731
197836
197932
198037
198136
198240
198342
198432
198536
198648
198748
198876
1989127
1990203
1991288
1992427
1993541
1994905
19951,034
19961,171
19971,185
19981,222
19991,035
20001,051
20011,047
2002968
2003954
2004801
2005757
2006785
2007845
2008841
2009774
2010861
2011809
2012807
2013630
2014626
2015585
2016577
2017573
2018607
2019597
2020580
2021583
2022627
2023647
2024585
2025512

US SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) — 56 years between 1970–2025. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.

Notable people with this name●

1970198019902000Imani Perry, b. 1972Imani Coppola, b. 1978Imani Rose, b. 1986SZA, b. 1989Imani Hakim, b. 1993Imani Boyette, b. 1994Imani Dorsey, b. 1996Imani Williams, b. 1999

The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).

Evidence●

Attested in 77 sources across 46 countries.

Official registers attesting Imani
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex202020K#1,549
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex2020969#1,549
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20202020682#35,521
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20102010562#39,164
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des prénoms (1900–2024)2024545#655
US United StatesSSA — National Baby Names (1880–present)2025512—
NL NetherlandsMeertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (live per-name BRP counts, 1790-2017)—376#3,827
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20002000311#60,557
SE SwedenSkatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population)—108#8,118
NO NorwaySSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population)—84#8,702
IN IndiaInstate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls—58#40,730
ES SpainINE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal)—53#43,017

Reference works 4

  • Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
  • Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
  • Wikipedia given-name tokens
  • Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)

These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.

Register rows as of the 2026-09-12 data build · 460 rows in the corpus for this spelling.

Frequently asked questions

How common is the name Imani?
We estimate roughly 21 thousand people bear Imani (counting its spellings and scripts) across 10 countries in our records.
In which country does Imani have the most bearers?
We estimate about 20 thousand people bear Imani in the United States, more than in any other country in our records, where it is most often spelled imani.
How common is Imani compared with other names?
In Tanzania, Imani is the 180th most common given name of 40,746 given names recorded there.
Is Imani a male or female name?
Imani is a female name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
What does the name Imani mean?
Recorded meaning: faith, belief
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/imani

The same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. Rate-limited for casual use. Bulk access and licensing.

About this data

● measured from records◐ inferred from the name graph○ machine-generated

Data snapshot . Figures are rebuilt periodically and will change.

Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.

Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.

Cite this page Mondonomo, “Imani” — the 180th most common given name in Tanzania. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.

See how Imani parses inside a full name →