Inis
Feminine · “island”
Inis is the Irish word for an island, and it is also what an American clerk might write for Inez. Both readings fit the record. The word itself opens a hundred Irish place names, and one of them supplied English with a very famous poem.
How old is the name Inis?
Inis first appears in US birth records in 1891 — 134 years ago. The typical Inis alive today was born around 1924, making them about 101 years old. About 100 people named Inis are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Inis most popular?
Inis peaked in 1891, reaching #1332 nationally. See the whole 1891 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
Origin, sound and short forms
The story of Inis
Yeats wrote the Lake Isle of Innisfree while walking down Fleet Street in London, homesick, and — by his own later account — was stopped by a shop window with a little ball balanced on a jet of water in it. The sound of the water set him thinking of lake water lapping, and the poem followed. The island is real: a small wooded one in Lough Gill in Sligo, close enough to the shore to swim to, and the name is the Irish for an island with a word after it that is usually read as heather. The poem became so famous so quickly that he grew tired of being asked to recite it, and he was critical afterwards of its rhythms, which he thought too obviously musical. It is still the best-known thing he wrote.
Meaningscholars disagree
island, or a respelling of Inez
The Irish noun means an island and stands at the front of a great many place names. The alternative reading treats the spelling as a phonetic version of the Spanish Inés, itself a form of Agnes. Both are plausible for the decade this name appears in and nothing separates them.
Pronouncing Inis
IN-iss
Two syllables with the stress at the front. Irish says it much the same way, which is unusual for an Irish word arriving in English spelling.
Nicknames for Inis
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
- 1891
- Most girls named
- 192032 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1332reached in 1891
- Change vs 1953
- +20.0%6 in 1956, 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.
Inis in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- inis in Irish — related form
- Inés in Spanish — related form
Iniss among us
people named Inis 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
Inis 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
- Four letters with no silent ones make it quick to write and simple to spell aloud.
- Two short syllables are easy for a small child to manage.
- It is genuinely rare and belongs to almost nobody now living.
- Ines, Inez and Innis are all recorded and will be written for it.
- The two possible origins are unrelated, so the meaning has two answers.
- It reads as a place-name element to anyone who knows Irish.
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Inis
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Iniss are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 100 people named Inis are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Inis in 2025?
- Inis is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Inis with classmates?
- Inis will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More I names
The most-given names starting with I, all years combined.
Isabella#7 · Irene#651 · Ida#1120 · Isabel#176 · Isabelle#166 · Iris#61 · Ivy#39 · Irma#3167
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Inis? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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