Xitlali
Feminine · “star”
Xitlali carries a Nahuatl word for "star" into English spelling, by way of Mexican Spanish and its fondness for the letter x. It is the same name as Citlali and Citlalli, and it moves in the mouth the way those do — three light syllables with the weight in the middle. In US records it clusters in California, Texas and Illinois, which is exactly where you would expect a name that traveled north with Mexican families.
How old is the name Xitlali?
Xitlali first appears in US birth records in 1992 — 33 years ago. The typical Xitlali alive today was born around 2011, making them about 14 years old. About 2,900 people named Xitlali are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Xitlali most popular?
Xitlali peaked in 2004, reaching #1225 nationally. Today it ranks #1229, 4 places below that high. See the whole 2004 chart.
Xitlali appears on this list:
Where it comes from
From cītlalli (Nahuatl) to Xitlali
The story of Xitlali
Nahuatl was the language of the Mexica and is still spoken by over a million people in central Mexico. Its word for star, cītlalli, became a given name for girls — written Citlalli, then Citlali, and in some families Xitlali, since Mexican Spanish uses x for several indigenous sounds, as in México, Oaxaca and Xochimilco. Names drawn from Nahuatl came into wide use in twentieth-century Mexico as part of a broader turn toward indigenous heritage in naming, and they crossed into the United States with Mexican migration. Xitlali is one of the spellings that made the crossing.
Meaning
star
From Nahuatl cītlalli, "star." The word is well attested in colonial-era Nahuatl dictionaries and is still the ordinary word for star among Nahuatl speakers today.
How the name formed
- cītlalliNahuatl
- Citlalli
- Citlali
- Xitlali
Related forms: Cītlalli · Citlalli · Citlali · Xitlaly · Citlaly · Citlalmina
Pronouncing Xitlali
seet-LAH-lee
Stress falls on the middle syllable. The x here does the work of an s, as in Xochitl; some families read it as a soft sh or an h instead, so it is worth deciding early which version you will say and correct to.
Nicknames for Xitlali
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
- 1992
- Most girls named
- 2025183 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1225reached in 2004
- Change vs 2024
- +20.4%183 in 2025, from 152
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.
Xitlali in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Cītlalli in Nahuatl — same name
- Citlalli in Spanish (Mexico) — spelling variant
- Citlali in Spanish (Mexico) — spelling variant
- Xitlaly in Spanish (Mexico) — spelling variant
- Citlaly in Spanish (Mexico) — spelling variant
- Citlalmina in Nahuatl — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Illinois.
Xitlalis among us
people named Xitlali are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 8,783 born in 2025 was named Xitlali
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Xitlali
- #1229
- Xitlali on the 2025 chart
- #709
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Xitlali went to 183 girls in 2025, but Xitlaly, Xitlalli and Xitllali are the same name said out loud. Together the 4 spellings went to 254, which makes it the 709th most-given girls’ name of the year — 520 places above the chart.
- Xitlali183
- Xitlaly53
- Xitlalli12
- Xitllali6
About 1 girl in 6,328 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 8,783 for Xitlali 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 Shoshana test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Xitlali's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Shoshana climbed just as high around 1984, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Shoshana's path sketches the road Xitlali is walking now.
Xitlali is on its second act. Revived names age gently: the generation that wore them first is far enough away that the name feels classic rather than dated.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Xitlali is headed
Xitlali 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.
Xitlali beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Xitlali in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- The meaning is short, documented and easy to explain: star, from Nahuatl.
- Several short forms are already in real use — Lali, Xitla, Lala — so there is a casual version ready-made.
- Recognized on sight in Mexican-American communities, which is where the name is most concentrated in US records.
- Ties to a language still spoken today, not only to a historical one.
- The spelling competes with Citlali, Citlalli, Citlaly and Xitlaly. Whichever you choose, expect to spell it aloud often, and expect forms to come back with a different version of it.
- The x invites more than one pronunciation from people meeting the name cold — seet, sheet, or a hard start. A one-line correction handles it, but it will be a lifelong one-line correction.
- She is unlikely to meet another Xitlali at school. That means no surname initial in the register, and also no one who already knows how to say it.
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Xitlali
Feminine · #1229 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Xitlalis are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 2,900 people named Xitlali are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Xitlali?
- Xitlali is the most-used spelling in US records — 183 of the 254 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Xitlaly, Xitlalli and Xitllali.
- How popular is the name Xitlali in 2025?
- Xitlali ranks #1229 among US girl names in 2025, with 183 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Xitlali?
- About 1 in every 8,783 US girls born in 2025 was named Xitlali — 183 in all.
- Will my child share the name Xitlali with classmates?
- Xitlali will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Xitlali
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Ehlani#1229 · May#1229 · Mariela#1229 · Anaia#1229 · Alisha#1229 · Aiyana#1225 · Zhamira#1225 · Shay#1225
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Xitlali? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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