Sekani
Masculine · “laugh”
Sekani is given to both — 1,333 boys and 286 girls since 1880. See other names given to both
Sekani comes from Chichewa, spoken in Malawi and Zambia, where seka means to laugh — Sekani is the form that tells a group of people to do it. It arrived in American records at the turn of this century and gathered attention after Angie Thomas's 2017 novel The Hate U Give, in which Starr's little brother carries the name, and the film that followed. Three even syllables, all open vowels, and nothing in the spelling that has to be guessed at once you have heard it said.
How old is the name Sekani?
Sekani first appears in US birth records in 2001 — 24 years ago. The typical Sekani is a kid of about 3 — this name's wave is very recent. About 1,300 people named Sekani are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Sekani most popular?
Sekani peaked in 2019, reaching #873 nationally. Today it ranks #1186, 313 places below that high. See the whole 2019 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From seka (Chichewa: to laugh) to Sekani
The story of Sekani
The root is Bantu: seka, to laugh, in Chichewa and Nyanja, the languages of Malawi and eastern Zambia. Names built straight from verbs are ordinary there in a way they are not in English — the name says the thing rather than describing it. In the United States it appears in the records only from the early 2000s, and its wider recognition owes a great deal to The Hate U Give, published in 2017 and filmed the following year, where Sekani is the youngest child in the Carter family. That is a short American history, but a clear one: a Malawian word, a bestselling novel, and a name now being given to boys born in Texas, North Carolina and Florida in particular.
Meaning
laugh, laughter
From the Chichewa/Nyanja verb seka, to laugh; Sekani is the plural imperative. Unrelated to the Sekani, an Athabaskan First Nation of northern British Columbia whose name comes from their own language.
How the name formed
- sekaChichewa: to laugh
- Sekani
Related forms: Sekani · Sekani · Seka
Pronouncing Sekani
seh-KAH-nee
Stress on the middle syllable, as in Chichewa. All three vowels are open and unhurried; nothing is silent.
Nicknames for Sekani
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
- 2001
- Most boys named
- 2019252 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #873reached in 2019
- Change vs 2024
- +5.5%173 in 2025, from 164
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.
Sekani in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Sekani in Chichewa — same name
- Sekani in Nyanja — same name
- Seka in Chichewa — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, North Carolina, Florida.
Sekanis among us
people named Sekani are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 9,873 born in 2025 was named Sekani
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 Jalon test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Sekani's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Jalon climbed just as high around 2001, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Jalon's path sketches the road Sekani is walking now.
Sekani 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 Sekani is headed
Sekani looks set to keep climbing gently, with roughly 23% more babies a year by 2030 if the current curve holds. Its history is short or jumpy, though, so read this as a sketch rather than a promise.
Low 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.
Sekani beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Sekani in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A documented meaning in a living language — Chichewa seka, to laugh — which is more than many names on the same page can offer.
- Spelled the way it sounds once heard: no silent letters, no competing spellings to correct.
- A child named Sekani will almost certainly be the only one in the school, without the name being invented or unplaceable.
- Three balanced syllables that sit comfortably after most one- and two-syllable surnames.
- Outside communities with Malawian or Zambian ties, most Americans will not have met the name, so expect to say it once and spell it once in unfamiliar rooms.
- The literary link cuts both ways: readers of The Hate U Give may name the book on hearing it, which some families welcome and others would rather avoid.
- The name's American record is short and its bearers are overwhelmingly young children, so there is no ready supply of grown Sekanis to point to — the shape of the name at forty is still being written.
- It shares its spelling with the Sekani First Nation of British Columbia, a separate name from a separate language, which occasionally comes up in searches.
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What they receive
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Sekani
Masculine · #1186 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Sekanis are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,300 people named Sekani are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Sekani in 2025?
- Sekani ranks #1186 among US boy names in 2025, with 173 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Sekani?
- About 1 in every 9,873 US boys born in 2025 was named Sekani — 173 in all.
- Will my child share the name Sekani with classmates?
- Sekani will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Sekani
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Gadiel#1186 · Bishop#1188 · Jabari#1188 · Kristopher#1188 · Steele#1183 · Oren#1183 · Merrick#1183 · Cove#1191
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Sekani? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Sekani and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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