Kiri
Feminine · “skin”
Kiri is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 989 girls against 5 boys since 1880.
Kiri is Maori, and its American peak has a specific cause: Kiri Te Kanawa sang at the wedding of the Prince of Wales in 1981, watched by an audience estimated in the hundreds of millions, and became one of the most famous sopranos in the world. American use of the name rises after that and peaks in 1984.
How old is the name Kiri?
Kiri first appears in US birth records in 1963 — 62 years ago. The typical Kiri alive today was born around 1995, making them about 30 years old. About 1,000 people named Kiri are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Kiri most popular?
Kiri peaked in 1984, reaching #1788 nationally. Today it ranks #5917, 4,129 places below that high. See the whole 1984 chart.
Where it comes from
From kiri to Kiri
The story of Kiri
Kiri Te Kanawa, born in Gisborne in 1944 of Maori and European descent, became a principal at Covent Garden in the 1970s and one of the leading lyric sopranos of her generation. Her performance of Handel's Let the Bright Seraphim at the 1981 royal wedding was broadcast worldwide and made her name internationally recognizable overnight. American birth records for Kiri respond within two years. Separately, the Maori language and its names have been in deliberate revival in New Zealand since the 1970s, and Kiri is ordinary there for reasons that have nothing to do with any single bearer.
Meaning
skin; bark; the surface of a thing
Maori kiri means skin, and by extension bark, rind or the outer surface of anything — kiri rakau is tree bark. It is an ordinary and much-used word. As a personal name it stands alone or forms part of longer compounds. The derivation is not contested. The name is unrelated to the Japanese kiri, a word for the paulownia tree and for mist, which is a separate language entirely.
How the name formed
- kiri
- Kiri
Related forms: Kiri · Kirri
Pronouncing Kiri
KIH-ree
Two syllables, stress on the first, with a short i and a lightly tapped r — Maori r is a tap, closer to the Spanish r than the American one. English speakers often say KEER-ee with a long e, which is the main variation heard.
Nicknames for Kiri
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
- 1963
- Most girls named
- 198460 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1788reached in 1984
- Change vs 2024
- +33.3%20 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.
Kiri in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Kiri in Maori — same name
- Kirri in English — spelling variant
Kiris among us
people named Kiri are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 80,363 born in 2025 was named Kiri
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Kiri
- #5917
- Kiri on the 2025 chart
- #934
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Kiri went to 20 girls in 2025, but Kyri is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 26, which makes it the 934th most-given girls’ name of the year — 4,983 places above the chart.
- Kiri20
- Kyri6
About 1 girl in 61,818 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 80,363 for Kiri 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 Irish test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Kiri's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Irish climbed just as high around 1960, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Irish's path sketches the road Kiri is walking now.
Kiri 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
Kiri beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Kiri in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Four letters, two syllables, and easy to say in almost any language.
- The meaning is a single concrete word in a living language.
- It has an internationally famous bearer whose association is entirely positive.
- Two vowel readings circulate, KIH-ree and KEER-ee.
- It is close to Kerry, Keira and Kiara, all of which are separate names.
- It carries a specific cultural identity, which is a strength or a consideration depending on the family.
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What they receive
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Kiri
Feminine · #5917 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Kiris are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,000 people named Kiri are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Kiri?
- Kiri is the most-used spelling in US records — 20 of the 26 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Kyri.
- How popular is the name Kiri in 2025?
- Kiri ranks #5917 among US girl names in 2025, with 20 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Kiri?
- About 1 in every 80,363 US girls born in 2025 was named Kiri — 20 in all.
- Will my child share the name Kiri with classmates?
- Kiri will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Kiri
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Elda#5917 · Saloma#5917 · Fawn#5917 · Sarafina#5917 · Jaymie#5917 · Jania#5917 · Kimberlynn#5917 · Patsy#5917
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Kiri? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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