Bohdi
Masculine · Sanskrit roots · “awakening”
Bohdi is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 794 boys against 12 girls since 1880.
Behind this spelling sits one of the oldest words in the Buddhist vocabulary: bodhi, the awakening under the fig tree at Bodh Gaya. It only became a first name in English within living memory, and it arrived sounding easy — two open syllables, BOH-dee, with the ready-made short form Bo already waiting at the front. Strongest along the California and Florida coasts, which is where the surf-film version of the name landed first.
How old is the name Bohdi?
Bohdi first appears in US birth records in 1994 — 31 years ago. The typical Bohdi is a kid of about 4 — this name's wave is very recent. About 800 people named Bohdi are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Bohdi most popular?
Bohdi peaked in 2025, reaching #1366 nationally. Today it ranks #1366, exactly where it peaked. See the whole 2025 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From budh- (Sanskrit root, 'to awake') to Bohdi
The story of Bohdi
Bodhi is a Sanskrit and Pali noun, not a traditional personal name: it is the word for the awakening the Buddha attained, and the tree he sat beneath is still called the Bodhi tree. It traveled into English through Buddhist texts and translation, then into everyday American speech through the twentieth-century spread of Buddhist practice in the West. Its life as a given name is recent, and the 1991 film Point Break — whose surfer leader is called Bodhi — put the sound in front of a large audience just before the name began appearing in US birth records. Bohdi is what happens next: parents hearing the name, then writing the h and d in the order English instinct suggests.
Meaning
awakening, enlightenment
Bohdi is a respelling of Bodhi, the standard transliteration of Sanskrit and Pali bodhi, from the verbal root budh-, 'to wake, to know'. The meaning belongs to the word; the swapped h and d belong to English.
How the name formed
- budh-Sanskrit root, 'to awake'
- bodhi
- Bodhi
- Bohdi
Related forms: Bodhi · Bodhi · Bodhi · Bodai (菩提) · Pútí (菩提) · Phothi (โพธิ)
Pronouncing Bohdi
BOH-dee
Two syllables, stress on the first. The dh of the original spelling is one aspirated consonant in Sanskrit, not a d plus an h, which is why Bohdi and Bodhi sound identical in English.
Nicknames for Bohdi
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
- 1994
- Most boys named
- 2025136 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1366reached in 2025
- Change vs 2024
- +67.9%136 in 2025, from 81
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.
Bohdi in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Bodhi in Sanskrit — transliteration
- Bodhi in Pali — transliteration
- Bodhi in English — spelling variant
- Bodai (菩提) in Japanese — related form
- Pútí (菩提) in Chinese — related form
- Phothi (โพธิ) in Thai — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Florida.
Bohdis among us
people named Bohdi are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 12,559 born in 2025 was named Bohdi
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 Corie test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Bohdi's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Corie climbed just as high around 1977, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Corie's path sketches the road Bohdi is walking now.
Bohdi 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 Bohdi is headed
Bohdi looks set to keep climbing gently, with roughly 24% more babies a year by 2030 if the current curve holds.
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.
Bohdi beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Bohdi in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Short, two syllables, no consonant cluster — most English speakers say it correctly on first sight even if they spell it differently.
- Comes with Bo already attached, a short form that stands alone as a name and works at every age.
- The meaning is traceable to a documented ancient word rather than a modern coinage, and that word is known across many languages.
- Rare enough in the US that a Bohdi is unlikely to share the name with a classmate.
- Bodhi is the standard spelling of the word, and it is also the more common spelling of the name. Bohdi will be corrected, autocorrected and reversed for life. Worth deciding now whether that trade is one you want.
- The word carries real religious weight in Buddhism, where it names the Buddha's awakening rather than a person. Some people will hear a borrowed sacred term rather than a name.
- This is a very new name in American records, so nearly everyone carrying it is a young child. There are no grown Bohdis yet to show how it wears on an adult — though Bo covers that ground easily.
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What they receive
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Bohdi
Masculine · Sanskrit roots · #1366 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Bohdis are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 800 people named Bohdi are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Bohdi in 2025?
- Bohdi ranks #1366 among US boy names in 2025, with 136 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Bohdi?
- About 1 in every 12,559 US boys born in 2025 was named Bohdi — 136 in all.
- Will my child share the name Bohdi with classmates?
- Bohdi will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Bohdi
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Holland#1366 · Kye#1366 · Jeriah#1366 · Shaya#1370 · Warner#1362 · Bernard#1362 · Jakob#1370 · Perry#1370
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Bohdi? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Bohdi and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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