Khairi
Masculine · “Arabic "charitable”
Khairi is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 516 boys against 10 girls since 1880.
The kh of Khairi is a sound English used to have. The gh of night, light and thought was once pronounced exactly that way — the ch of Scottish loch — and it fell silent around 1500, which is why English is full of silent gh spellings that once did real work.
How old is the name Khairi?
Khairi first appears in US birth records in 1990 — 35 years ago. The typical Khairi alive today was born around 2011, making them about 14 years old. About 500 people named Khairi are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Khairi most popular?
Khairi peaked in 2011, reaching #3235 nationally. Today it ranks #7679, 4,444 places below that high. See the whole 2011 chart.
Where it comes from
From khayr to Khairi
The story of Khairi
English lost the sound in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and the spellings stayed put. Night, light, bright, thought, daughter and laughter all once had it; in most words it went silent, and in a few — laugh, cough, tough, enough — it hardened to an f. Scots kept it, which is why loch is not lock in Scotland, and German, Dutch, Arabic, Hebrew, Persian and Russian all still have it. That is why so many transliterated names from those languages carry a kh that English speakers simply say as k: Khalid, Khan, Mikhail, Chanukah. Khairi is one of them, and the American figures peak in 2011.
Meaning
Arabic "charitable, beneficent"
From Arabic khayrī, from khayr, good, goodness or benefit — the root behind khayrāt, charitable works. The kh represents a single Arabic consonant, a voiceless velar fricative, distinct from both k and h; English has no letter for it, so transliteration uses the digraph. Khairi, Khayri and Kheiri are the same name written three ways.
How the name formed
- khayr
- khayrī
- Khairi
Related forms: خيري · Hayri · Khayri
Pronouncing Khairi
KY-ree
Two syllables, stress on the first. The kh is a single consonant made at the back of the throat, like the ch of loch; English speakers say a plain k, which is close enough to be understood.
Nicknames for Khairi
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
- 1990
- Most boys named
- 201134 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #3235reached in 2011
- Change vs 2024
- +25.0%10 in 2025, from 8
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.
Khairi in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- خيري in Arabic — transliteration
- Hayri in Turkish — same name
- Khayri in English — spelling variant
Khairis among us
people named Khairi are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 170,808 born in 2025 was named Khairi
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Khairi
- #7679
- Khairi on the 2025 chart
- #876
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Khairi went to 10 boys in 2025, but Kairi is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 52, which makes it the 876th most-given boys’ name of the year — 6,803 places above the chart.
- Kairi42
- Khairi10
About 1 boy in 32,848 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 170,808 for Khairi itself.
Spellings are grouped by a fixed rule that folds interchangeable English spellings of one sound (ck/k, ph/f, x/ks, a non-initial y for i) and keeps vowels apart, so Sean and Shawn stay separate names. It errs towards splitting: a family here is never larger than the truth. SSA national data, 2025. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Ericson test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Khairi's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Ericson climbed just as high around 1967, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Ericson's path sketches the road Khairi is walking now.
Khairi 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
Khairi beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Khairi in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- The meaning is settled and generous: charitable.
- Khai is a clean short form that stands alone.
- It is short, two syllables and easy to approximate in English.
- The kh sound does not exist in English and is always approximated.
- Khayri and Kheiri are competing transliterations.
- It is rare in the United States and will need spelling out.
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What they receive
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Khairi
Masculine · #7679 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Khairis are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 500 people named Khairi are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Khairi?
- Khairi is one of 2 recorded spellings. Kairi is the more common one — 42 births in 2025 against 10 for Khairi.
- How popular is the name Khairi in 2025?
- Khairi ranks #7679 among US boy names in 2025, with 10 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Khairi?
- About 1 in every 170,808 US boys born in 2025 was named Khairi — 10 in all.
- Will my child share the name Khairi with classmates?
- Khairi will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Khairi
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Early#7679 · Obie#7679 · Huston#7679 · Knute#7679 · Rance#7679 · Blain#7679 · Doyle#7679 · Millard#7679
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Khairi? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Khairi and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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