Mekai
Masculine
Kai may be the most convergent syllable on earth. It is the sea in Hawaiian, a short form of Nikolaus in Frisian and Danish, a word in Japanese and Chinese, a name in Maori and in Navajo, and none of these is related to any other. Mekai attaches an American prefix to the syllable the whole world already had.
How old is the name Mekai?
Mekai first appears in US birth records in 1999 — 26 years ago. The typical Mekai alive today was born around 2012, making them about 13 years old. About 600 people named Mekai are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Mekai most popular?
Mekai peaked in 2005, reaching #2902 nationally. Today it ranks #6446, 3,544 places below that high. See the whole 2005 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
Origin, sound and short forms
Our story of Mekai
Some sounds are easy in almost every language: a stop, an open vowel, a glide. Kai is one of them, which is why so many unrelated languages arrived at it independently and why it has become a genuinely global name in the last thirty years without belonging to anybody. American naming then did what it does with any available syllable and put prefixes on it, producing Mekai, Dekai, Jakai and Nikai. The prefix marks the name as new and the syllable makes it familiar, and the combination is why a coinage like this can sound established the first time it is said. Mekai's best year in United States records is 2005, in the middle of the general Kai wave rather than ahead of it.
Meaningnot established
Not established
Mekai has no inherited etymology. The Kai it contains is genuinely present in many unrelated languages, meaning sea in Hawaiian, deriving from Nikolaus in the Frisian and Scandinavian tradition, and existing separately in Japanese, Chinese, Maori and Navajo; none of those is the source of this compound. The Me- prefix is a free American naming element with no content.
Pronouncing Mekai
muh-KY
Two syllables with the stress at the end and a long i in the second. Some families say MEE-ky with the weight at the front; both are in use.
Nicknames for Mekai
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
- 1999
- Most boys named
- 200536 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #2902reached in 2005
- Change vs 2024
- −40.9%13 in 2025, from 22
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.
Mekai in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Makai in English — spelling variant
- Kai in Hawaiian — related form
Mekais among us
people named Mekai are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 131,390 born in 2025 was named Mekai
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Mekai
- #6446
- Mekai on the 2025 chart
- #901
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Mekai went to 13 boys in 2025, but Mekhai is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 27, which makes it the 901st most-given boys’ name of the year — 5,545 places above the chart.
- Mekhai14
- Mekai13
About 1 boy in 63,262 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 131,390 for Mekai 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 Alim test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Mekai's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Alim climbed just as high around 1975, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Alim's path sketches the road Mekai is walking now.
Mekai 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
Mekai beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Mekai in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Contains Kai, one of the most portable name syllables in any language.
- End-stressed, which gives it a rhythm most American boys' names do not have.
- Short, easy to spell and unmistakable once heard.
- Makai is the more common spelling and will be written instead.
- Makai is also a Hawaiian word meaning toward the sea, which is a separate thing entirely.
- The name carries no meaning of its own to pass on.
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Mekai
Masculine · #6446 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Mekais are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 600 people named Mekai are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Mekai?
- Mekai is one of 2 recorded spellings. Mekhai is the more common one — 14 births in 2025 against 13 for Mekai.
- How popular is the name Mekai in 2025?
- Mekai ranks #6446 among US boy names in 2025, with 13 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Mekai?
- About 1 in every 131,390 US boys born in 2025 was named Mekai — 13 in all.
- Will my child share the name Mekai with classmates?
- Mekai will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Mekai
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Rollie#6446 · Billie#6446 · Worth#6446 · Blas#6446 · Starling#6446 · Alvis#6446 · Elwyn#6446 · Rollin#6446
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Mekai? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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