Maki
Masculine
Maki is given to both — 519 boys and 211 girls since 1880. See other names given to both
In Japanese the sound of a name tells you almost nothing about the name. Maki can be written with the characters for truth and hope, for reel or scroll, for a hedge or a tree, and each is a different name that happens to sound the same. Romanisation throws all of that away and leaves four letters that could be any of them.
How old is the name Maki?
Maki first appears in US birth records in 1995 — 30 years ago. The typical Maki alive today was born around 2009, making them about 16 years old. About 500 people named Maki are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Maki most popular?
Maki peaked in 2004, reaching #2788 nationally. Today it ranks #8243, 5,455 places below that high. See the whole 2004 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
Origin, sound and short forms
The story of Maki
Japanese writes native words with Chinese characters, and this creates a many-to-many relationship between sound and meaning that alphabetic scripts do not have. A single character can be read several ways; a single reading can be written with dozens of characters. For personal names the effect is extreme: parents choose the characters as carefully as the sound, the characters carry the meaning, and two people whose names are pronounced identically may have names that mean entirely different things and look nothing alike on paper. Japanese speakers therefore ask how a name is written as a matter of course, in a way English speakers only do for spelling. When a Japanese name is romanised, the writing is lost and only the sound survives. That is why a romanised Japanese name cannot be given a meaning, and why any reference work that gives one has guessed.
Meaningscholars disagree
Not established
Maki is a Japanese given name written with any of several kanji combinations, and the meaning depends entirely on which is used: makoto and ki for truth and tree, maki for a scroll or roll, maki for pasture or grazing land. It is more often female than male in Japan. Maki is separately a Finnish surname, maki, a hill, and a Malagasy word for the ring-tailed lemur, and the American record cannot distinguish any of these.
Pronouncing Maki
MAH-kee
Two syllables, both short and even. Japanese has no stress accent of the English kind; it uses pitch instead, so the English habit of stressing the first syllable is an addition rather than a translation. Americans usually say MACK-ee.
Nicknames for Maki
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
- 1995
- Most boys named
- 200640 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #2788reached in 2004
- Change vs 2024
- +28.6%9 in 2025, from 7
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.
Maki in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Maki in Japanese — transliteration
- Maki in Finnish — related form
Makis among us
people named Maki are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 189,786 born in 2025 was named Maki
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Maki
- #8243
- Maki on the 2025 chart
- #829
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Maki went to 9 boys in 2025, but Makhi is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 99, which makes it the 829th most-given boys’ name of the year — 7,414 places above the chart.
- Makhi90
- Maki9
About 1 boy in 17,253 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 189,786 for Maki 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 Paddy test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Maki's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Paddy climbed just as high around 1948, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Paddy's path sketches the road Maki is walking now.
Maki 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
Maki beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Maki in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Four letters, easy to write and easy to say.
- It is at home in Japanese, Finnish and American settings.
- The sound is clear and rarely misheard.
- In Japan it is more often a woman's name.
- No meaning can be given without knowing the characters.
- American speakers stress the first syllable, which Japanese does not.
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What they receive
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Maki
Masculine · #8243 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Makis 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 Maki are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Maki?
- Maki is one of 2 recorded spellings. Makhi is the more common one — 90 births in 2025 against 9 for Maki.
- How popular is the name Maki in 2025?
- Maki ranks #8243 among US boy names in 2025, with 9 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Maki?
- About 1 in every 189,786 US boys born in 2025 was named Maki — 9 in all.
- Will my child share the name Maki with classmates?
- Maki will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Maki
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Danial#8243 · Ogden#8243 · Aaren#8243 · Trinity#8243 · Kourtney#8243 · Maury#8243 · Lindon#8243 · Elbert#8243
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Maki? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Maki and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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