Kimberli
Feminine · “Old English”
There is a rock called kimberlite, and the chain behind its name runs backwards through a South African mining town, a British colonial secretary and an English village. Kimberly the girl's name is one branch of that chain.
How old is the name Kimberli?
Kimberli first appears in US birth records in 1951 — 74 years ago. The typical Kimberli alive today was born around 1973, making them about 52 years old. About 3,700 people named Kimberli are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Kimberli most popular?
Kimberli peaked in 1968, reaching #783 nationally. Today it ranks #10107, 9,324 places below that high. See the whole 1968 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Cyneburgleah to Kimberli
The story of Kimberli
In 1871 diamonds were found on a farm in Griqualand West, and the settlement that grew around the hole was named Kimberley two years later after the British Colonial Secretary, whose earldom came from a village in Norfolk. The diamonds were embedded in a blue volcanic rock nobody had described before, so geologists named the rock after the town: kimberlite, now the standard term for the diamond-bearing pipes wherever they occur, from Siberia to Arkansas. That is four steps: an Anglo-Saxon woman's clearing, an English village, a British title, an African town, and finally a mineral used in every geology textbook in the world. The girl's name branched off the same trunk in the twentieth century, and the -i spelling belongs to the American wave that peaked in the late 1960s.
Meaningscholars disagree
Old English, Cyneburg's clearing
Kimberley is an English place name, generally from a female personal name such as Cyneburg with leah, a clearing. The South African town was named in 1873 after Lord Kimberley, the Colonial Secretary, who took his title from the English place. The Kimberli spelling is an American variant of the 1960s; its peak is 1968.
How the name formed
- Cyneburgleah
- Kimberley
- Kimberly
- Kimberli
Related forms: Kimberley · Kimberly
Pronouncing Kimberli
KIM-ber-lee
Three syllables, stress on the first. Kimberly, Kimberley and Kimberli are homophones; only the ending's look differs.
Nicknames for Kimberli
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
- 1951
- Most girls named
- 1969150 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #783reached in 1968
- Change vs 2024
- −40.0%9 in 2025, from 15
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.
Kimberli in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Kimberley in English — spelling variant
- Kimberly in English — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas.
Kimberlis among us
people named Kimberli are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 178,585 born in 2025 was named Kimberli
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Kimberli
- #10107
- Kimberli on the 2025 chart
- #309
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Kimberli went to 9 girls in 2025, but Kimberly is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 1,018, which makes it the 309th most-given girls’ name of the year — 9,798 places above the chart.
- Kimberly1,009
- Kimberli9
About 1 girl in 1,579 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 178,585 for Kimberli 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 Pandora test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Kimberli's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Pandora climbed just as high around 1952, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Pandora's path sketches the road Kimberli is walking now.
Kimberli 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
Kimberli beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Kimberli in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Kim is one of the most portable short forms in English.
- The place, the title and the mineral are all documented and traceable.
- Three syllables with a firm opening stress.
- Kimberly is the standard American spelling.
- The 1968 peak dates this variant precisely.
- The -i ending was a 1960s and 1970s device and reads that way.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Kimberli
Feminine · #10107 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Kimberlis are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 3,700 people named Kimberli are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Kimberli?
- Kimberli is one of 2 recorded spellings. Kimberly is the more common one — 1,009 births in 2025 against 9 for Kimberli.
- How popular is the name Kimberli in 2025?
- Kimberli ranks #10107 among US girl names in 2025, with 9 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Kimberli?
- About 1 in every 178,585 US girls born in 2025 was named Kimberli — 9 in all.
- Will my child share the name Kimberli with classmates?
- Kimberli will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Kimberli
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Berta#10107 · Jettie#10107 · Maye#10107 · Osa#10107 · Fidelia#10107 · Alysa#10107 · Su#10107 · Willie#10107
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Kimberli? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Kimberli and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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