Zuri
Masculine · “Beautiful”
Zuri is given to both — 770 boys and 16,844 girls since 1880. See Zuri as a girl nameSee other names given to both
Zuri is Swahili for beautiful or good, and its American history has two distinct halves: it entered the birth records in the 1970s for boys, in the movement toward East African names, and it is now overwhelmingly a girls' name. The boys' peak is 1978.
How old is the name Zuri?
Zuri first appears in US birth records in 1973 — 52 years ago. The typical Zuri alive today was born around 2006, making them about 19 years old. About 800 people named Zuri are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Zuri most popular?
Zuri peaked in 1978, reaching #2669 nationally. Today it ranks #5399, 2,730 places below that high. See the whole 1978 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From -zuri to Zuri
The story of Zuri
Swahili entered American naming deliberately from the late 1960s, and Zuri is one of the words that came with Nia, Imani, Jamila and Ayanna. The American record shows it used for boys first, peaking in 1978, and then crossing to girls through the 1990s and 2000s — the usual direction of travel for a name with an open ending. Black Panther in 2018 put a male Zuri on screen, played by Forest Whitaker, but the girls' use had long since become dominant. Zuri is also a name in Kenya and Tanzania, where the word is simply the ordinary adjective.
Meaning
Beautiful, good
From Swahili -zuri, an adjective meaning good, beautiful or fine, which takes a class prefix in ordinary Swahili grammar — nzuri, mzuri — and appears bare as a name. The reading is settled. A separate Basque zuri, white, and a Hebrew ṣûrî, my rock, are sometimes offered for the same spelling and are unrelated to the Swahili word.
How the name formed
- -zuri
- Zuri
Related forms: Zuri
Pronouncing Zuri
ZOO-ree
Two syllables, stress on the first. Swahili gives both vowels full value and puts the stress on the first as well, so the English and Swahili sayings agree closely.
Nicknames for Zuri
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
- 1973
- Most boys named
- 200234 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #2669reached in 1978
- Change vs 2024
- −22.7%17 in 2025, from 22
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
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Virginia.
Zuris among us
people named Zuri are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 100,475 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 Rayner 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: Rayner climbed just as high around 1940, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Rayner'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
Zuri beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Zuri in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- The meaning is settled, short and about as pleasant as a meaning gets.
- Four letters and two open syllables travel anywhere.
- The Z opening is uncommon in English and makes it distinctive.
- In current American use it is overwhelmingly a girls' name.
- Swahili grammar would attach a prefix, so the bare form is a naming convention rather than the word in use.
- Zuri, Zurie and Zury are all in the records.
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What they receive
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Zuri
Masculine · #5399 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 800 people named Zuri are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Zuri in 2025?
- Zuri ranks #5399 among US boy names in 2025, with 17 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Zuri?
- About 1 in every 100,475 US boys born in 2025 was named Zuri — 17 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.
Frazier#5399 · Franz#5399 · Demetrio#5399 · Rolan#5399 · Rayvon#5399 · Riddick#5399 · Laramie#5399 · Soloman#5399
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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