Kabir
Masculine · Arabic roots · “great”
Kabir comes from the Arabic word for "great," and al-Kabīr — The Great — stands among the names of God recited in Islam. It is also the name carried by the fifteenth-century North Indian poet Kabir, whose couplets are still sung in Hindi, and whose verses were gathered into the Sikh scripture, the Guru Granth Sahib. Two syllables, no silent letters, and a long life in Arabic, Urdu, Hindi, Punjabi and Bengali.
How old is the name Kabir?
Kabir first appears in US birth records in 1976 — 49 years ago. The typical Kabir is a kid of about 7 — this name's wave is very recent. About 3,600 people named Kabir are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Kabir most popular?
Kabir peaked in 2021, reaching #837 nationally. Today it ranks #999, 162 places below that high. See the whole 2021 chart.
Kabir appears on this list:
Where it comes from
From kabīr (Arabic) to Kabir
The story of Kabir
The root k-b-r runs through Arabic in words for greatness and magnitude, and kabīr — "great" — became a name in its own right early on, spreading with Arabic wherever the language and Islam traveled. In South Asia it settled into Urdu, Punjabi, Bengali and Hindi, where it belongs to Muslim families as a given name and to Bengali families as a surname. Its most famous bearer, the weaver-poet Kabir of Banaras, wrote in the fifteenth century against caste and ritual in either faith; his lines were absorbed into Sikh scripture and are still recited across northern India. The name reached American records in the later twentieth century, and its strongest showing today is in California, New Jersey and Texas — the map of recent South Asian and Middle Eastern settlement.
Meaning
great, large, mighty (Arabic kabīr)
In the definite form, al-Kabīr, it is one of the divine attributes named in the Qur'an.
How the name formed
- kabīrArabic
- al-Kabīr
- Kabir / Kabeer
- KabirEnglish
Related forms: كبير (Kabeer) · कबीर · کبیر · Kabir / Kobir · Kebir · Kabeer
Pronouncing Kabir
kuh-BEER
Stress on the second syllable is the usual English rendering. Some families say KAH-beer, closer to the Arabic, and both are correct — worth deciding early which one you will repeat.
Nicknames for Kabir
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
- 1976
- Most boys named
- 2021284 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #837reached in 2021
- Change vs 2024
- −7.3%227 in 2025, from 245
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.
Kabir in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- كبير (Kabeer) in Arabic — transliteration
- कबीर in Hindi — transliteration
- کبیر in Urdu — transliteration
- Kabir / Kobir in Bengali — spelling variant
- Kebir in Turkish — related form
- Kabeer in English — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, New Jersey, Texas.
Kabirs among us
people named Kabir are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 7,525 born in 2025 was named Kabir
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 Storm test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Kabir's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Storm climbed just as high around 1995, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Storm's path sketches the road Kabir is walking now.
Kabir 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 Kabir is headed
Kabir should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
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.
Kabir beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Kabir 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, and spelled the way it sounds once heard — little risk of lifelong correction on paper.
- Works in Arabic, Urdu, Hindi, Punjabi and Bengali as well as English, so it needs no translation across a family.
- A documented meaning that is settled rather than guessed at: "great."
- Carries a literary and devotional history reaching back to the fifteenth century, familiar across two religious traditions in South Asia.
- Two pronunciations circulate in the US — kuh-BEER and KAH-beer — and the Kabeer spelling exists alongside this one. Expect to say which you use, gently and often.
- In Muslim naming practice, names of God in the al- form are traditionally paired with Abd ("servant of"), as in Abd al-Kabir. Kabir on its own is long-established and widely given, but some relatives may raise the point.
- A child with this name will most likely be the only one in the school, which some children enjoy and others find tiring in the years when blending in matters most.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Kabir
Masculine · Arabic roots · #999 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Kabirs are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 3,600 people named Kabir are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Kabir in 2025?
- Kabir ranks #999 among US boy names in 2025, with 227 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Kabir?
- About 1 in every 7,525 US boys born in 2025 was named Kabir — 227 in all.
- Will my child share the name Kabir with classmates?
- Kabir will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Kabir
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Lev#999 · Langston#999 · Macklin#998 · Landry#996 · Howard#1002 · Oziel#996 · Benito#1002 · Brennan#1002
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Kabir? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Kabir and another name?
See them side by side — full stats, history and a gentle verdict.
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Which one would you pick?
Your gut first, the numbers after — the split shows once you pick.
US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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