Amiri
Masculine · Arabic roots · “princely”
Amiri is given to both — 3,306 boys and 1,622 girls since 1880. See Amiri as a girl nameSee other names given to both
Amiri belongs to one of the most widely traveled word-families in the world: the Arabic amīr, the title behind emir, carried east into Persian and Urdu and south into Swahili. In the mouth it is three open syllables with the weight in the middle — ah-MEER-ee — a rhythm it shares with Amira and Amara. The American poet Amiri Baraka took the name in the late 1960s, and the spelling has been on US records ever since.
How old is the name Amiri?
Amiri first appears in US birth records in 1971 — 54 years ago. The typical Amiri is a kid of about 3 — this name's wave is very recent. About 3,300 people named Amiri are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Amiri most popular?
Amiri peaked in 2023, reaching #506 nationally. Today it ranks #604, 98 places below that high. See the whole 2023 chart.
Amiri appears on these lists:
Where it comes from
From amīr (Arabic) to Amiri
The story of Amiri
The root is the Arabic verb meaning 'to command', which gave amīr — a commander, a prince — a title that spread with Arabic across North Africa, Persia, Turkey, South Asia and the Swahili coast, surviving in English as emir. Amiri is the adjectival form of that word and, in Swahili, the everyday shape the name takes. Its life as an American given name runs alongside the Black cultural movements of the late 1960s, when the poet Amiri Baraka adopted it; the spelling appears in US birth records from the early 1970s onward. For most of that stretch it was quietly present rather than fashionable, and the sharp climb has come only recently.
Meaning
princely; of a commander — from Arabic amīr
Amīr comes from the Arabic root meaning 'to command'; it is the same word as the title emir. Amiri is the adjectival form, and also the ordinary Swahili form of Amir.
How the name formed
- amīrArabic
- Amir
- Amiri
Related forms: Amiri · Amir · Amir · Emir · Amir · Ameer
Pronouncing Amiri
ah-MEER-ee
Three syllables, stress on the middle one. Some American speakers open with a softer uh-. The spelling gives the sound away, so strangers rarely have to guess.
Nicknames for Amiri
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
- 1971
- Most boys named
- 2023596 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #506reached in 2023
- Change vs 2024
- −15.6%472 in 2025, from 559
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.
Amiri in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Amiri in Swahili — same name
- Amir in Arabic — related form
- Amir in Persian — related form
- Emir in Turkish — related form
- Amir in Bosnian — related form
- Ameer in Urdu — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, Florida, California.
Amiris among us
people named Amiri are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 3,619 born in 2025 was named Amiri
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Jair test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Amiri's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Jair climbed just as high around 2003, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Jair's path sketches the road Amiri is walking now.
Amiri 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 Amiri is headed
Amiri is on a steep climb — if the curve holds, 2030 could see around 124% more babies given the name than today. Its history is short or jumpy, though, so read this as a sketch rather than a promise.
Low 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.
Amiri beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Amiri in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Built on the same root as Amir and Emir, names already familiar across Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Urdu and Swahili speech.
- Reads phonetically in English — most people say it correctly on sight without being taught.
- Its meaning is settled rather than disputed, which is not true of every name a parent looks up.
- Contains a ready-made short form, Amir, that works as a full name anywhere in the world.
- Works on a girl as easily as a boy, with nothing in the sound to correct.
- It sits very close to Amir and Amira, and to Amara. Expect a lifetime of gentle corrections when the final vowel gets dropped or swapped — and consider whether one of those is actually the name you want.
- Amiri is also a well-known luxury clothing label, named for its founder. That association is current and mostly harmless, but people will occasionally mention it.
- The spelling is recorded for both boys and girls, leaning to boys. A girl named Amiri may be assumed male on paperwork before anyone meets her.
- The name is climbing quickly, so a child born now is likelier to meet another Amiri at school than the current picture suggests — still a rarity, but less so than it was.
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What they receive
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Amiri
Masculine · Arabic roots · #604 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Amiris are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 3,300 people named Amiri are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Amiri in 2025?
- Amiri ranks #604 among US boy names in 2025, with 472 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Amiri?
- About 1 in every 3,619 US boys born in 2025 was named Amiri — 472 in all.
- Will my child share the name Amiri with classmates?
- Amiri will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Amiri
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Nikolai#605 · Caiden#602 · Lachlan#606 · Reese#602 · Roland#607 · Abdiel#607 · Zaiden#607 · Jonas#599
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Amiri? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Amiri and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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