Mi
Feminine
Mi is two letters long, which almost no name in the American record is, and it can arrive from several directions at once. What it is depends entirely on information that American forms are designed not to keep.
How old is the name Mi?
Mi first appears in US birth records in 1954 — 71 years ago. The typical Mi alive today was born around 1988, making them about 37 years old. About 700 people named Mi are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Mi most popular?
Mi peaked in 1981, reaching #3066 nationally. See the whole 1981 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
Origin, sound and short forms
Our story of Mi
Korean given names are almost always two syllables, and the syllables are chosen as a pair: one is often shared with siblings or with a whole generation of cousins, and the other belongs to the child. A single syllable standing alone is unusual enough in Korea that it registers as a deliberate choice. When those names reach American paperwork, the system frequently splits them — one syllable into the given-name field and the other treated as a middle name — and a two-syllable name becomes a one-syllable one on the record without anybody deciding anything. The same thing happens from a different direction with Vietnamese, where the tone mark that distinguishes several completely different words is simply dropped. A very short entry in a national list is often not a short name. It is a long name that met a form.
Meaningnot established
Not established
Nothing can be established from the spelling alone. The syllable is a common element in Korean and Vietnamese women's names, where it is written in a script or with a diacritic that a US form discards, and it is also what remains when a longer name is entered by its first syllable or a middle initial is read as a name. Each of these produces the same two letters.
Pronouncing Mi
MEE
One syllable. English readers will say it as the word me, which is close enough in most of the languages it can come from; the Vietnamese version carries a tone that English does not reproduce.
Nicknames for Mi
Limited
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
- 1954
- Most girls named
- 198128 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #3066reached in 1981
- Change vs 2023
- −25.0%6 in 2024, from 8
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.
Mis among us
people named Mi are estimated to be alive in the US today
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Mi sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- Two letters is as short as a name gets, and it fits any field on any form.
- The sound exists in every language, so it survives travel without alteration.
- It is impossible to misspell once heard.
- Very short entries break some databases, which insist on a minimum length.
- It will be read as an initial or an abbreviation rather than as a name.
- The record cannot say which language it came from, so no single meaning can honestly be given.
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Mi
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Mis are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 700 people named Mi are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Mi in 2025?
- Mi is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Mi with classmates?
- Mi will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More M names
The most-given names starting with M, all years combined.
Mary#125 · Margaret#112 · Michelle#465 · Melissa#419 · Maria#87 · Martha#712 · Marie#617 · Mildred#1962
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Mi? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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