Akai
Masculine · “red”
Akai is given to both — 1,010 boys and 68 girls since 1880. See other names given to both
Akai is red in Japanese — akai, the adjective — and it is also a Japanese surname and an electronics company most people have met on a stereo.
How old is the name Akai?
Akai first appears in US birth records in 1975 — 50 years ago. The typical Akai is a kid of about 6 — this name's wave is very recent. About 1,000 people named Akai are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Akai most popular?
Akai peaked in 2023, reaching #1668 nationally. Today it ranks #1753, 85 places below that high. See the whole 2023 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From 赤い to Akai
Our story of Akai
Our story of Akai is a story of two doors into the same sound. Japanese has akai, red, and a surname written with the characters for red and a well; the electronics firm founded in Tokyo in 1929 carries it. Separately, American naming had Kai rising fast by the 2010s and A- fronts attaching to everything. Akai appears in the American registers in that decade. Both routes are real, and the record does not say which any family used.
Meaningscholars disagree
red
The Japanese akai, 赤い, is the ordinary adjective for red. As a surname Akai is written with characters for red and well. A second route treats Akai as a modern American coinage on the A- front and -kai ending. Both are in circulation.
How the name formed
- 赤い
- Akai
Related forms: 赤井 · Akae · Kai
Pronouncing Akai
ah-KY
Two syllables, stress on the second. Japanese gives the vowels an even weight.
Nicknames for Akai
Moderate
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1975
- Most boys named
- 2023102 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1668reached in 2023
- Change vs 2024
- +33.3%92 in 2025, from 69
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Akai in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- 赤井 in Japanese — transliteration
- Akae in English — spelling variant
- Kai in Hawaiian — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: Florida, New York, Texas.
Akais among us
people named Akai are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 18,566 born in 2025 was named Akai
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Akai
- #1753
- Akai on the 2025 chart
- #756
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Akai went to 92 boys in 2025, but Akaay, Akhai and Akaii are the same name said out loud. Together the 4 spellings went to 172, which makes it the 756th most-given boys’ name of the year — 997 places above the chart.
- Akai92
- Akaay68
- Akhai7
- Akaii5
About 1 boy in 9,931 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 18,566 for Akai itself.
Spellings are grouped by a fixed rule that folds interchangeable English spellings of one sound (ck/k, ph/f, x/ks, a non-initial y for i) and keeps vowels apart, so Sean and Shawn stay separate names. It errs towards splitting: a family here is never larger than the truth. SSA national data, 2025. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Rohn test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Akai's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Rohn climbed just as high around 1954, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Rohn's path sketches the road Akai is walking now.
Akai is climbing fast right now. Steep climbs tend to come with steep descents — the quicker a name arrives, the more firmly it belongs to its moment.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Akai is headed
Akai should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
Medium confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Akai beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Akai in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- The red meaning is concrete and transparent to Japanese speakers.
- Kai is available as a short form that is fully current.
- Two clean syllables with no pronunciation risk.
- The origin is genuinely split between Japanese and a modern coinage.
- An electronics brand is a strong association for older readers.
- It is very new in American records.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Akai
Masculine · #1753 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Akais are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,000 people named Akai are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Akai?
- Akai is the most-used spelling in US records — 92 of the 172 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Akaay, Akhai and Akaii.
- How popular is the name Akai in 2025?
- Akai ranks #1753 among US boy names in 2025, with 92 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Akai?
- About 1 in every 18,566 US boys born in 2025 was named Akai — 92 in all.
- Will my child share the name Akai with classmates?
- Akai will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Akai
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Ames#1753 · Zealand#1753 · Keyler#1753 · Salomon#1753 · Yehoshua#1753 · Arley#1753 · Riaan#1753 · Morris#1753
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Akai? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Akai and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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