Imani
Feminine · Arabic roots · “faith”
Imani is given to both — 27,817 girls and 1,395 boys since 1880. See Imani as a boy nameSee other names given to both
Imani is the Swahili word for faith, and it arrived in English-speaking use with that meaning intact. It sits on three clean syllables, spelled almost exactly as it sounds, and it is also the seventh principle of Kwanzaa — the one marked on the holiday's final day. Familiar to many American ears, yet rarely doubled up in a classroom.
How old is the name Imani?
Imani first appears in US birth records in 1970 — 55 years ago. The typical Imani alive today was born around 2005, making them about 20 years old. About 27,500 people named Imani are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Imani most popular?
Imani peaked in 1996, reaching #239 nationally. Today it ranks #579, 340 places below that high. See the whole 1996 chart.
Imani appears on this list:
Where it comes from
From īmān (Arabic) to Imani
The story of Imani
The word traveled with trade and Islam down the East African coast: Arabic īmān, 'faith', entered Swahili as imani and stayed there as everyday vocabulary. Kwanzaa, created in the United States in the 1960s, took its seven principles from Swahili and gave the last of them this name — Imani, faith, celebrated on the closing day. From the 1970s onward, American parents drawing on Swahili for given names took it up as a girl's name, and it has been in continuous use since. In Arabic-speaking countries the closely related Iman has long been a woman's name; in Iran, Iman is a man's.
Meaning
faith, belief
Swahili imani, borrowed from Arabic īmān 'faith', which comes from the root ʾ-m-n — the same root behind amin and, at a distance, amen.
How the name formed
- īmānArabic
- imaniSwahili
- Imani
Related forms: Imani · Iman / Eman · Iman · İman · Imany
Pronouncing Imani
ee-MAH-nee
Swahili puts the stress on the second syllable, which is how most American speakers say it too. Some say ih-MAH-nee with a lighter first vowel; both are widely heard.
Nicknames for Imani
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
- 1970
- Most girls named
- 19981,222 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #239reached in 1996
- Change vs 2024
- −12.5%512 in 2025, from 585
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.
Imani in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Imani in Swahili — same name
- Iman / Eman in Arabic — related form
- Iman in Persian — related form
- İman in Turkish — related form
- Imany in English — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, Florida, California.
Imanis among us
people named Imani are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 3,139 born in 2025 was named Imani
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 Jami test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Imani's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Jami climbed just as high around 1977, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Jami's path sketches the road Imani is walking now.
Imani sits in the calm middle of the cycle — neither chasing a wave nor sliding off one. Middle-of-the-cycle names age slowly and predictably.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Imani is headed
Imani should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
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.
Imani beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Imani 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 or double consonants to explain.
- Carries a plain, settled meaning — faith — that a child can learn and repeat without a dictionary.
- Recognized across Swahili and, in related form, Arabic and Persian, so it travels without becoming unreadable.
- Decades of unbroken American use, common enough to be familiar but rarely repeated in one classroom.
- Three even syllables that sit easily after most one- and two-syllable surnames.
- Amani, a separate Swahili name meaning peace, is close enough in sound and spelling that the two get mixed up. Expect the occasional correction, and expect Emani and Imanni to show up on forms as well.
- The name is tied to Swahili and to Kwanzaa, where it names the principle of faith. Families outside those traditions may want to be comfortable saying where it comes from, since it is the first thing people who know the word will hear.
- In American records it is a girl's name, but Iman is a man's name in Iran, so international paperwork and introductions can occasionally take the wrong turn.
- The stress placement varies a little from speaker to speaker, so a child may correct teachers now and then — a small, easily solved thing.
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What they receive
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Imani
Feminine · Arabic roots · #579 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Imanis are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 27,500 people named Imani are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Imani in 2025?
- Imani ranks #579 among US girl names in 2025, with 512 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Imani?
- About 1 in every 3,139 US girls born in 2025 was named Imani — 512 in all.
- Will my child share the name Imani with classmates?
- Imani will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Imani
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Kyla#579 · Jimena#578 · Cleo#577 · Kailany#581 · Reina#582 · Mckenzie#576 · Noemi#583 · Cali#574
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Imani? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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