Malaki
Masculine · “My messenger (or my angel)”
Malaki is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 4,786 boys against 5 girls since 1880.
Behind this spelling stands one of the shortest books in the Hebrew Bible — Malachi, the closing voice of the prophets, whose name means "my messenger." The K spelling is newer, an American reworking that keeps the three open syllables and trades the biblical -chi for a letter that never argues about its sound. Said aloud it moves quickly and lands hard on the final syllable: MAL-uh-kye.
How old is the name Malaki?
Malaki first appears in US birth records in 1989 — 36 years ago. The typical Malaki alive today was born around 2011, making them about 14 years old. About 4,700 people named Malaki are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Malaki most popular?
Malaki peaked in 2007, reaching #783 nationally. Today it ranks #1256, 473 places below that high. See the whole 2007 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Mal'akhi to Malaki
The story of Malaki
The name comes from Hebrew mal'akhi, "my messenger," and belongs to the last of the twelve minor prophets, whose short book closes the prophetic writings. Greek and Latin translators carried it as Malachias, and English Bibles settled on Malachi, which is where the English-speaking world picked it up — most enthusiastically among Protestant families after the Reformation put Old Testament names into ordinary use. Malaki is a recent American respelling of that same name, one of several alongside Malakai and Malaky. In Hawaiian, unrelatedly, Malaki is the calendar word for March, borrowed from English.
Meaning
My messenger (or my angel), from Hebrew
The Hebrew mal'akh means both messenger and angel — the two senses are the same word, and the -i ending is the possessive "my."
How the name formed
- Mal'akhi
- Malachias
- Malachi
- Malaki
Related forms: מַלְאָכִי (Mal'akhi) · Malachi · Malaquías · Malachie · Malachia · Malachy
Pronouncing Malaki
MAL-uh-kye
Stress on the first syllable, with the last rhyming with "sky." The -ki ending leads some readers to try mal-AH-kee on first sight, so expect to correct that occasionally.
Nicknames for Malaki
High
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
- 1989
- Most boys named
- 2007278 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #783reached in 2007
- Change vs 2024
- +15.3%158 in 2025, from 137
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.
Malaki in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- מַלְאָכִי (Mal'akhi) in Hebrew — transliteration
- Malachi in English — spelling variant
- Malaquías in Spanish — same name
- Malachie in French — same name
- Malachia in Italian — same name
- Malachy in Irish — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, Florida, California.
Malakis among us
people named Malaki are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 10,811 born in 2025 was named Malaki
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Malaki
- #1256
- Malaki on the 2025 chart
- #657
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Malaki went to 158 boys in 2025, but Malakhi is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 283, which makes it the 657th most-given boys’ name of the year — 599 places above the chart.
- Malaki158
- Malakhi125
About 1 boy in 6,036 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 10,811 for Malaki 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 Ishmael test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Malaki's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Ishmael climbed just as high around 1912, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Ishmael's path sketches the road Malaki is walking now.
Malaki 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 Malaki is headed
Malaki should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
Medium 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.
Malaki beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Malaki in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Rests on a biblical name with an unbroken written record stretching back more than two thousand years.
- Two ready-made short forms, Mal and Kai, both of which stand on their own.
- Recognized in cognate form across Spanish, French, Italian and Irish, so it travels without becoming unreadable.
- Every letter is a common English letter with its plainest value — no silent characters, no ch to explain.
- Malachi remains the standard spelling in Bibles and dictionaries, so this version will be reflexively corrected in writing throughout a lifetime. Spelling it out will simply become routine.
- The final -i invites a "kee" reading on paper. Most people get it after hearing it once, but the first pronunciation is often the wrong one.
- Malachi, Malakai and Malaki all circulate at once, which means a child may meet all three versions of the same name and have to distinguish his own.
Nobody names a baby alone.
Put Malaki to the vote.
Add it to a family vote or a couple’s swipe deck — the other person gets one card, a simple answer and room to say why. No app, no account for them.
Only the people you invite can see your list.
Already decided on Malaki? Hide it among decoys and let them guess.
What they receive
Someone added a name to your list
Malaki
Masculine · #1256 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Malakis are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 4,700 people named Malaki are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Malaki?
- Malaki is the most-used spelling in US records — 158 of the 283 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Malakhi.
- How popular is the name Malaki in 2025?
- Malaki ranks #1256 among US boy names in 2025, with 158 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Malaki?
- About 1 in every 10,811 US boys born in 2025 was named Malaki — 158 in all.
- Will my child share the name Malaki with classmates?
- Malaki will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Malaki
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Yohan#1256 · Jerome#1256 · Aven#1256 · West#1252 · Jordy#1260 · Emrys#1260 · Brecken#1252 · Monroe#1260
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Malaki? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Malaki and another name?
See them side by side — full stats, history and a gentle verdict.
Compare side by sideIn a hurry? Just pick a winner — one tap, no sign-up, and you see how everyone else voted.
Weighing a whole shortlist? Add the rest in the builder, or settle it with a bracket.
Cast your vote
Which one would you pick?
Your gut first, the numbers after — the split shows once you pick.
US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
No advertising trackers and no data sellinghow we handle your dataindependent and founder-run, about Name Battle