Kimani
Masculine
Kimani is given to both — 1,758 boys and 1,699 girls since 1880. See Kimani as a girl nameSee other names given to both
Kimani is a Kikuyu name from Kenya, and it belongs to a naming system in which children are named for their grandparents in a fixed order rather than chosen freely.
How old is the name Kimani?
Kimani first appears in US birth records in 1969 — 56 years ago. The typical Kimani alive today was born around 2001, making them about 24 years old. About 1,700 people named Kimani are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Kimani most popular?
Kimani peaked in 1972, reaching #1364 nationally. Today it ranks #3583, 2,219 places below that high. See the whole 1972 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
Origin, sound and short forms
Our story of Kimani
Ours, offered as ours. Kikuyu naming works by a rule rather than a choice: the first son takes his paternal grandfather's name, the second his maternal grandfather's, and so on down a fixed sequence. That means a Kikuyu name is a position in a family as much as a word, and the same set of names circulates through generations. Kimani is one of them. Its arrival in American records in the 1970s belongs to a quite separate story — families choosing East African names deliberately.
Meaningnot established
Not established
No settled derivation. Kimani is a well-established Kikuyu men's name and, like many in that stock, its meaning is not recoverable from the modern language. It is also used in African-American families from the 1970s onward, chosen for its East African association rather than a meaning.
Pronouncing Kimani
kee-MAH-nee
Three syllables with the stress in the middle. Every vowel is open.
Nicknames for Kimani
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
- 1969
- Most boys named
- 199567 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1364reached in 1972
- Change vs 2024
- −3.1%31 in 2025, from 32
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.
Kimani in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Kimani in Kikuyu — same name
- Kimani in Swahili — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: Florida, New York, California.
Kimanis among us
people named Kimani are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 55,099 born in 2025 was named Kimani
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Kimani
- #3583
- Kimani on the 2025 chart
- #808
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Kimani went to 31 boys in 2025, but Kymani is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 120, which makes it the 808th most-given boys’ name of the year — 2,775 places above the chart.
- Kymani89
- Kimani31
About 1 boy in 14,234 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 55,099 for Kimani 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 Howie test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Kimani's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Howie climbed just as high around 1957, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Howie's path sketches the road Kimani is walking now.
Kimani 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 Kimani is headed
Kimani should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind. Its history is short or jumpy, though, so read this as a sketch rather than a promise.
Low 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.
Kimani beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Kimani in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A genuine Kenyan name with a large and living community behind it.
- Open vowels make it easy to say in most languages.
- Mani is a usable short form with its own life.
- The Kim clip reads as a women's name in English.
- It is used for both sexes in American records, so forms may guess wrong.
- The meaning is not recoverable, which is true of a great many older Kikuyu names.
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Kimani
Masculine · #3583 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Kimanis are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,700 people named Kimani are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Kimani?
- Kimani is one of 2 recorded spellings. Kymani is the more common one — 89 births in 2025 against 31 for Kimani.
- How popular is the name Kimani in 2025?
- Kimani ranks #3583 among US boy names in 2025, with 31 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Kimani?
- About 1 in every 55,099 US boys born in 2025 was named Kimani — 31 in all.
- Will my child share the name Kimani with classmates?
- Kimani will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Kimani
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Geoffrey#3583 · Robinson#3583 · Emre#3583 · Yoan#3583 · Anirudh#3583 · Sutter#3583 · Kristofer#3583 · Heber#3583
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Kimani? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Kimani and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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