Lili

Spellings & scripts●

Locally spelled Lee in US United States, KR South Korea, GB United Kingdom and 7 more, Li in CN China, FR France, ES Spain, Leila in BR Brazil, AR Argentina, GE Georgia and Лилия in RU Russia, KZ Kazakhstan.

Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records; ○ marks a model's transliteration. Click a spelling to open its page.

Meaning & origin●

Attested across 16 languages in the etymology graph.

Languages●

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◐

Lili is also recorded as 8 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

• French given name72K records spelled Lili32 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in France, United States, Belgium, Canada

  Languages: French, Catalan

  Also written Lilli, Li-Li, Lîlî, Lìli, Lîlï

• Hindi given name52K records spelled Lili29 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in India, United States, United Kingdom, Bangladesh

  Languages: Hindi, Bangla, Sinhala

  Also written Lilly, Lily, লিলি, Lillie, Lilley

• Indonesian given name38K records spelled Lili8 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in Indonesia, India, Malaysia, United States

  Languages: Indonesian, Malay

  Also written Lilli, 'Lili, Li-Li, Lili'

• a separate given name6.3K records spelled Lili7 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in United States, China, India, Ethiopia

  Also written Li-Li, Lìlǐ, Lil̲i, Lilī, Līlī

• Romanian given name1.5K records spelled Lili2 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in Italy, Romania, Spain, United States

  Also written Lîlî

• Japanese given name1.4K records spelled Lili2 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in Japan, India, United States, China

  Also written Li-Li

• Albanian given name1.3K records spelled Lili4 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in Albania, Italy, United States, India

  Also written Lîlï, Lilí, Lílï

• Catalan given name807 records spelled Lili2 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in Spain

  Also written Lilí

53 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●

Lili 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 Hungarian, a female given name, equivalent to English Lilly

  as a word·kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

• Pet form of exisaBeTu. Also: Lilli.

  as a name·A concise dictionary of first names

• German: pet form, originally a reduplicated nursery form, of ELISABETH . This form is associated in particular with the Second World War popular song Lili Marlene . Variant: Lilli .

  as a word

• In Hawaiian, jealous; highly sensitive to criticism; jealousy; anger and mental anguish felt if one’s loved ones are criticized

  as a word·Austronesian Comparative Dictionary (ACD), CLDF v2.0

• In Tongan, to boil (of the sea). to be turbulent, violently rough; to be very angry, to boil with rage, to be furious

  as a word·Austronesian Comparative Dictionary (ACD), CLDF v2.0

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●

EC INEC — Visualizador de Nombres y Apellidos, per-token query API (1900–2024) — 99 years between 1918–2024. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.

Notable people with this name●

• Lili Elbeb. 1882DKDanish painter and transgender woman (1882–1931)
• Lili Boulangerb. 1893FRFrench composer (1893–1918)
• Lili Darvasb. 1902HUHungarian actress (1902–1974)
• Lili Krausb. 1903HUHungarian born English classical pianist (1903–1986)
• Liliana Segreb. 1930ITnot in their usual nameItalian Holocaust survivor and senator for life
• Liliana Cavanib. 1933ITnot in their usual nameItalian film director and screenwriter
• Lili Taylorb. 1967USAmerican actress
• Lili Simmonsb. 1993USAmerican actress and model
• Liliana Mumyb. 1994USnot in their usual nameAmerican actress
• Lili Reinhartb. 1996USAmerican actress (born 1996)

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●

Register rows as of the 2026-09-12 data build · 1,024 rows in the corpus for this spelling.

Frequently asked questions

How common is the name Lili?

We estimate roughly 724 thousand people bear Lili (counting its spellings and scripts) across 10 countries in our records.

In which country does Lili have the most bearers?

Lili is most frequently recorded in China, where it is most often spelled li.

How common is Lili compared with other names?

In China, Lili is the 5th most common surname of 134,008 surnames recorded there.

Is Lili a male or female name?

Lili 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 Lili mean?

Recorded meaning: Short form of names from Latin lilium ‘lily’; associated with purity.