Timi
Feminine
Timi is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 649 girls against 5 boys since 1880.
Timi is recorded for daughters and for sons, with rather more sons, and it can shorten several names that have nothing to do with each other. A city whose name starts the same way is the English byword for the ends of the earth, and it was a university town.
How old is the name Timi?
Timi first appears in US birth records in 1953 — 72 years ago. The typical Timi alive today was born around 1966, making them about 59 years old. About 600 people named Timi are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Timi most popular?
Timi peaked in 1964, reaching #1334 nationally. See the whole 1964 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
Origin, sound and short forms
Our story of Timi
Timbuktu is a real place and it was a center of learning. On the southern edge of the Sahara where the caravan routes met the Niger, it grew rich on salt and gold, and by the sixteenth century it had substantial madrasas and a book trade — manuscripts copied, sold and collected in private family libraries, on law, astronomy, medicine and poetry. Hundreds of thousands of those manuscripts survive, in family collections and institutes, and were moved in secret in recent conflicts to keep them from destruction. The English use of the name for anywhere impossibly remote comes from the period when Europeans had heard of the city's wealth and could not get to it; several expeditions died trying, which fixed it in the language as a place that might not exist.
Meaningnot established
Not established
It may shorten Timothy, which is Greek, or Tamara, which is Hebrew, or serve as a familiar form of several others. The record holds the short form alone and does not indicate which.
Pronouncing Timi
TIM-ee
Two syllables with the stress at the front. Hungarian, where this is a standing name, says it the same way, which is unusual for a borrowed spelling.
Nicknames for Timi
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
- 1953
- Most girls named
- 196471 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1334reached in 1964
- Change vs 1996
- +66.7%10 in 1997, from 6
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.
Timis among us
people named Timi 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
Timi 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
- Four letters with no silent ones make it quick to write and say.
- It works for a child of either sex, which the record confirms.
- Two syllables with front stress is the plainest shape English has.
- Timmy, Timmi and Tami will all be written for it.
- It reads as a nickname, so people will ask what it stands for.
- Which longer name it belongs to is not recorded.
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Timi
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Timis 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 Timi are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Timi in 2025?
- Timi is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Timi with classmates?
- Timi will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More T names
The most-given names starting with T, all years combined.
Teresa#908 · Theresa#1548 · Tiffany#878 · Tammy#3645 · Taylor#403 · Tina#2778 · Tracy#2153 · Thelma#4661
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Timi? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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