Alani
Feminine · Hawaiian roots · “orange”
Alani is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 18,799 girls against 111 boys since 1880.
In Hawaiian, ʻalani is the orange — the tree, the fruit and the color all at once. The English-speaking world already knew the shape of it from Alana and Leilani, so Alani arrived on the mainland sounding familiar the first time anyone heard it: four vowels, one soft consonant apiece, nothing to stumble over.
How old is the name Alani?
Alani first appears in US birth records in 1978 — 47 years ago. The typical Alani is a kid of about 5 — this name's wave is very recent. About 18,500 people named Alani are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Alani most popular?
Alani peaked in 2025, reaching #161 nationally. Today it ranks #161, exactly where it peaked. See the whole 2025 chart.
Where it comes from
From ʻalani (Hawaiian) to Alani
The story of Alani
The Hawaiian language supplies the clearest road: ʻalani, the orange, a word that names a tree, a fruit and a color together. Hawaiian names traveled steadily into wider American use through the twentieth century — Leilani, Kalani, Malia — and Alani arrived on the charts in that same current, well after the first wave. The other road is plainer: Alana and Alanna were long established in English, and Alani sits alongside them as a variant with a lighter ending. Its strongest footing today is in California, Texas and Florida, states where Pacific and Latino naming currents both run deep and where the vowels fall easily into Spanish as well as English.
Meaningscholars disagree
orange — the tree, the fruit, the color (Hawaiian); also read as a form of Alana
Hawaiian ʻalani is the word for the orange tree and its color, and that is the reading most often given. The same spelling also functions in English as a variant of Alana and Alanna, the feminine forms of Alan — a name whose own meaning has never been settled, with Breton and Celtic roots argued over for a long time.
How the name formed
- ʻalaniHawaiian
- Alani
Related forms: ʻAlani · Alana · Alanna · Alaina · Alaine
Pronouncing Alani
ah-LAH-nee
Three syllables, stress in the middle. Hawaiian begins with a glottal catch before the first vowel, which English speakers simply drop. A few families say uh-LAY-nee instead, so it is worth deciding early which one you will correct people toward.
Nicknames for Alani
High
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
- 1978
- Most girls named
- 20251,843 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #161reached in 2025
- Change vs 2024
- +8.2%1,843 in 2025, from 1,703
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.
Alani in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- ʻAlani in Hawaiian — spelling variant
- Alana in English — related form
- Alanna in Irish/English — related form
- Alaina in English — related form
- Alaine in French — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Florida.
Alanis among us
people named Alani are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 872 born in 2025 was named Alani
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Alani
- #161
- Alani on the 2025 chart
- #139
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Alani went to 1,843 girls in 2025, but Alany, Alanni and Aalani and the rest below are the same name said out loud. Together the 8 spellings went to 2,219, which makes it the 139th most-given girls’ name of the year — 22 places above the chart.
and 2 rarer spellings.
About 1 girl in 724 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 872 for Alani 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 Elva test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Alani's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Elva climbed just as high around 1901, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Elva's path sketches the road Alani is walking now.
Alani 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 Alani is headed
Alani looks set to keep climbing gently, with roughly 16% more babies a year by 2030 if the current curve holds.
High 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.
Alani beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Alani in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Spelled the way it sounds, with no silent letters and no doubled consonants to explain.
- Already familiar to American ears through Alana, Alanna and Leilani, so it rarely needs repeating twice.
- Has a ready short form in Lani, which also works as a full name.
- The vowels behave the same in Spanish, Italian and Hawaiian, which helps in bilingual families.
- It sits in a crowded family of near-identical names — Alana, Alanna, Alaina, Elena. Expect a lifetime of spelling it out on forms, even to people who know how to say it.
- The chart is rising quickly. A child named Alani today may well share the sound, if not the spelling, with several classmates by the time she is in school.
- A widely sold American energy drink brand carries this name, which means search results and shelf displays are dominated by it for now.
- It is a Hawaiian word before it is anything else. Some families like knowing that and lean into it; others prefer to treat the name as it now functions in wider English use. Worth deciding which story you will tell her.
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What they receive
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Alani
Feminine · Hawaiian roots · #161 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Alanis are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 18,500 people named Alani are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Alani?
- Alani is the most-used spelling in US records — 1,843 of the 2,219 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Alany, Alanni, Aalani, Alanii and Alanny.
- How popular is the name Alani in 2025?
- Alani ranks #161 among US girl names in 2025, with 1,843 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Alani?
- About 1 in every 872 US girls born in 2025 was named Alani — 1,843 in all.
- Will my child share the name Alani with classmates?
- Alani will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Alani
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Sage#160 · Valeria#162 · Anastasia#163 · Arya#158 · Wrenley#158 · Ashley#164 · Phoebe#157 · Nevaeh#165
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Alani? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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