Zuri
Feminine · “good”
Zuri is given to both — 16,844 girls and 770 boys since 1880. See Zuri as a boy nameSee other names given to both
Zuri is a Swahili word before it is a name — the adjective for good and beautiful, heard daily along the East African coast. It reaches American ears as four clean letters and two even syllables, ZOO-ree, spelled the way it sounds. It has been on US records for decades now, and the children carrying it are mostly young.
How old is the name Zuri?
Zuri first appears in US birth records in 1971 — 54 years ago. The typical Zuri is a kid of about 6 — this name's wave is very recent. About 16,500 people named Zuri are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Zuri most popular?
Zuri peaked in 2022, reaching #194 nationally. Today it ranks #328, 134 places below that high. See the whole 2022 chart.
Where it comes from
From nzuri / -zuri (Swahili 'good, beautiful') to Zuri
The story of Zuri
The word comes from Swahili, a Bantu language with heavy Arabic borrowing that serves as a lingua franca across Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and the eastern Congo. Swahili vocabulary entered American English through Black cultural and educational movements of the mid-twentieth century — Kwanzaa, founded in the 1960s, took its principles and much of its language directly from Swahili — and a set of short, vowel-clear Swahili words became given names in the process. Zuri traveled that route: an ordinary adjective on one continent, a name on another. It sits comfortably beside the American fondness for names ending in -i, which is part of why its rise here has been so recent.
Meaning
good, beautiful (Swahili)
In Swahili the adjective stem -zuri takes agreement prefixes — nzuri, mzuri, kizuri — and is one of the first words a learner meets. Two unrelated look-alikes exist: zuri means 'white' in Basque, and the Hebrew name Tzuri, sometimes written Zuri, comes from tzur, 'rock'. Neither is the road by which Zuri became a common American girls' name.
How the name formed
- nzuri / -zuriSwahili 'good, beautiful'
- Zuri
Related forms: Zuri · Zurie · Zury · Tzuri · Zuriel · Zuri
Pronouncing Zuri
ZOO-ree
Two syllables, the vowels kept pure as in Swahili — 'zoo' then 'ree'. Some American speakers say ZUR-ee, with the first vowel closer to 'were'; both are heard, and correcting it once usually settles it.
Nicknames for Zuri
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
- 1971
- Most girls named
- 20221,523 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #194reached in 2022
- Change vs 2024
- −18.8%932 in 2025, from 1,148
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.
Zuri in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Zuri in Swahili — same name
- Zurie in English — spelling variant
- Zury in English — spelling variant
- Tzuri in Hebrew — related form
- Zuriel in Hebrew — related form
- Zuri in Basque — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, Georgia, Florida.
Zuris among us
people named Zuri are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 1,725 born in 2025 was named Zuri
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 Ernestine test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Zuri's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Ernestine climbed just as high around 1926, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Ernestine's path sketches the road Zuri is walking now.
Zuri 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 Zuri is headed
Zuri should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
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.
Zuri beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Zuri in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Four letters, phonetic in English: almost anyone can spell it after hearing it once, and read it after seeing it once.
- Works unchanged in Swahili-speaking countries and in English, with no translation or adjustment needed.
- Has a settled, documented meaning in a living language — the kind of answer that holds up when the child asks.
- Established short forms already in use, from Zuzu to plain Z, so there is room to move without inventing anything.
- The competing spellings Zurie and Zury exist, so expect the occasional 'how do you spell that?' even though Zuri is the standard form.
- It sits close to Zoe, Zara and Suri in sound, and will sometimes be misheard as one of them over the phone or in a noisy room.
- Among Swahili speakers this is an everyday word for 'nice' or 'beautiful' rather than a neutral name — worth knowing if that is your family's language.
- The name's American wave is recent, so a child named Zuri will meet few adults who share it — and, in most schools, no other Zuri at all.
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What they receive
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Zuri
Feminine · #328 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Zuris are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 16,500 people named Zuri are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Zuri in 2025?
- Zuri ranks #328 among US girl names in 2025, with 932 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Zuri?
- About 1 in every 1,725 US girls born in 2025 was named Zuri — 932 in all.
- Will my child share the name Zuri with classmates?
- Zuri will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Zuri
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Kendall#328 · Navy#327 · Fatima#330 · Alessia#326 · Serena#325 · Viviana#331 · Alayna#332 · Nina#324
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Zuri? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Zuri and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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