Rumi
Feminine
Rumi is given to both — 953 girls and 671 boys since 1880. See Rumi as a boy nameSee other names given to both
Rumi arrives in English from at least three unrelated directions: it is the epithet of the thirteenth-century Persian poet Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi, a long-established girl's name in Japan written with several different sets of kanji, and the Quechua word for stone, still visible in Andean place names. Two syllables, five letters, and almost nothing in it for English speakers to trip over — it is read aloud correctly on the first try by most people who see it written.
How old is the name Rumi?
Rumi first appears in US birth records in 2002 — 23 years ago. The typical Rumi is a kid of about 3 — this name's wave is very recent. About 900 people named Rumi are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Rumi most popular?
Rumi peaked in 2025, reaching #1279 nationally. Today it ranks #1279, exactly where it peaked. See the whole 2025 chart.
Rumi appears on these lists:
Where it comes from
From Rūm to Rumi
The story of Rumi
The best-documented Rumi is not a given name at all but a description. The poet born in 1207 in the Persian-speaking east, who wrote the Masnavi and whose verse founded the Mevlevi order in Konya, was called Rumi because he lived in Rum — the lands of the old Eastern Roman Empire, in what is now Turkey. Quite separately, Rumi has been in steady use as a girl's name in Japan for generations, assembled from syllables that can be written with many different characters. Its recent English-language wave is newer than either: it followed the widely reported naming of Beyoncé and Jay-Z's daughter Rumi in 2017, and the American record shows the name climbing since.
Meaningscholars disagree
depends on the road: 'from Rum' (Persian), 'lapis lazuli / beauty' among Japanese spellings, 'stone' in Quechua
The Persian Rumi is a place-epithet: Rum was the Arabic and Persian name for Byzantine Anatolia, so al-Rumi meant 'the Anatolian'. The Japanese name is written in kanji, and the meaning changes with the characters chosen — 瑠美 combines a character for lapis lazuli with one for beauty, while other spellings give quite different readings. In Quechua, rumi is simply the word for stone. These are separate names that happen to meet at one spelling in English.
How the name formed
- Rūm
- al-Rūmī
- Rumi
Related forms: るみ / 瑠美 · رومی · Rûmî · Rumi · Rumiko
Pronouncing Rumi
ROO-mee
Both the Persian and the Japanese name land in roughly the same place in English. Japanese pronunciation gives the two syllables more even weight than the English stress pattern does.
Nicknames for Rumi
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
- 2002
- Most girls named
- 2025175 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1279reached in 2025
- Change vs 2024
- +48.3%175 in 2025, from 118
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.
Rumi in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- るみ / 瑠美 in Japanese — same name
- رومی in Persian — transliteration
- Rûmî in Turkish — spelling variant
- Rumi in Quechua — same name
- Rumiko in Japanese — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, New York.
Rumis among us
people named Rumi are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 9,184 born in 2025 was named Rumi
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Tyana test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Rumi's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Tyana climbed just as high around 1999, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Tyana's path sketches the road Rumi is walking now.
Rumi is climbing fast right now. Steep climbs tend to come with steep descents — the quicker a name arrives, the more firmly it belongs to its moment.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Rumi is headed
Rumi looks set to keep climbing gently, with roughly 25% more babies a year by 2030 if the current curve holds.
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.
Rumi beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Rumi in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Spelled as it sounds for English readers — five letters, two syllables, and no competing spelling in wide use.
- Works across several language communities at once: recognized in Japan, in Persian and Turkish literary tradition, and in the Andes.
- Short enough to need no nickname, but yields Ru and Roo easily if a family wants one.
- Carries a genuinely old literary association through the Persian poet, without being a name most people have already met on a child.
- The poet's name is the association most American adults will reach for first, and he was a man. Expect occasional assumptions that the name belongs to a boy, and a fair number of remarks about his poetry.
- Because the English-language wave is so recent and so closely tied to one celebrity naming, the name reads as distinctly of this moment — it will mark a birth cohort more than most names do.
- It is still rare enough here that your child will likely be introducing the name rather than recognizing it, and will hear the occasional 'roomy'.
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What they receive
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Rumi
Feminine · #1279 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Rumis are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 900 people named Rumi are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Rumi in 2025?
- Rumi ranks #1279 among US girl names in 2025, with 175 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Rumi?
- About 1 in every 9,184 US girls born in 2025 was named Rumi — 175 in all.
- Will my child share the name Rumi with classmates?
- Rumi will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Rumi
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Saniyah#1279 · Cassie#1279 · Karen#1279 · Leela#1279 · Antonia#1279 · Ryann#1285 · Micaela#1285 · Rita#1285
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Rumi? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Rumi and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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