Bonni
Feminine · “pretty”
Bonni comes from a Scots word that means good-looking rather than good. Bonnie entered Scots from French, where the adjective means good, and shifted in Scotland to mean handsome, fine or pretty, so a bonnie thing is attractive and not necessarily virtuous. English speakers using it as a name are generally reaching for the Scottish sense.
How old is the name Bonni?
Bonni first appears in US birth records in 1940 — 85 years ago. The typical Bonni alive today was born around 1962, making them about 63 years old. About 1,200 people named Bonni are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Bonni most popular?
Bonni peaked in 1947, reaching #1576 nationally. See the whole 1947 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From A French adjective meaning good to Bonni
The story of Bonni
The shift from good to good-looking is not unusual. English does the same thing in the other direction with fair, which meant beautiful and came to mean just; and with nice, which meant ignorant, then fastidious, then agreeable. Words about worth and words about appearance trade places constantly, because a society that admires something tends to describe it with whatever word is nearest. Scots took the French adjective, applied it to people and things that pleased the eye, and kept it; English took the same French word by another route and got bounty and bonus out of it. The name was in use in Scotland long before it became an American name, and it arrived here as a Scots word rather than as a French one.
Meaning
pretty, fine
The Scots adjective, from the French word for good, with the sense shifted to appearance rather than character. The reading is settled. The bare i ending in this spelling is a mid-century American device with no meaning of its own; it is one of four ways English writes this final sound and the least common of them.
How the name formed
- A French adjective meaning good
- Shifted in Scots to mean handsome or pretty
- Used as a name in Scotland and then in America
- Bonni, with the bare i ending of the nineteen forties
Pronouncing Bonni
BON-ee
Two syllables, stress on the first, identical to the fuller spelling. The bare i is one of four ways English writes this ending, and it is the one that dates a certificate most precisely.
Nicknames for Bonni
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
- 1940
- Most girls named
- 196450 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1576reached in 1947
- Change vs 2021
- +20.0%6 in 2023, from 5
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.
Bonnis among us
people named Bonni are estimated to be alive in the US today
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Bonni sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- The sound is universally familiar and never needs explaining.
- The meaning is clear, warm and can be given in one word.
- The spelling is distinctive without making the name difficult.
- Bonnie is the standard spelling and this one will be converted into it constantly.
- The word is an ordinary adjective in Scotland, which is a different thing from a name.
- It is closely tied to the middle of the twentieth century.
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Bonni
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Bonnis are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,200 people named Bonni are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Bonni in 2025?
- Bonni is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Bonni with classmates?
- Bonni will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More B names
The most-given names starting with B, all years combined.
Barbara#968 · Betty#1113 · Brenda#1525 · Beverly#1016 · Brittany#928 · Bonnie#396 · Brianna#222 · Bertha#4546
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Bonni? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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