Ali

Popularity, 1880–2025

girls named Ali boys named Ali

Girls and boys called Ali

years more girls than boys years more boys than girls

Both, throughout, without either side ever taking it over: 10,505 girls and 34,383 boys in all, and in 2025 the split was 44 to 1,116.

The girls’ share of each year’s babies of the name, in the 67 years in which at least 25 babies got it. The line touches the middle more often than there are crossings marked: a year or two on the other side is not a name changing hands, and only a move that holds for 5 counted years and reaches 60/40 is recorded as one. All 581 names that changed sex.

By the numbers

Total US births

44,888

Estimated living today

44,000

Median age today

18

Peak year

2022

Best rank

301st

Rank in 2025

306th

First recorded

1914

Girls / boys

10,505 / 34,383

How old the living Alis are

born that year still alive today

Of the 44,888 babies given the name since 1914, about 44,000 are alive — 97 in every hundred. Roughly 21,000 of them are children and 170 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 2007 and half after.

An estimate, not a count. SSA births aged forward through SSA cohort life tables, which know nothing about who left the country or arrived in it — so for a name that mostly came to America rather than being born in it, this is a floor rather than a figure. Where you fall among living Americans.

Where the name comes from

Origin Arabic

From Arabic عَلِيّ, from the Arabic root.

Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Notable Alis

• Ali Khamenei (1939–2026)Supreme Leader of Iran from 1989 to 2026
• Alī ibn Abī Ṭālib (599–661)4th Rashidun Caliph (r. 656–661) and first Shia Imam
• Ali Abdullah Saleh (1947–2017)President of North Yemen (1978–1990) and Yemen
• Ali Bongo Ondimba (born 1959)President of Gabon
• Muhammad Ali (1769–1849)Wali of Egypt and Sudan
• Ali-Shir Nava'i (1441–1501)Turkic poet and politician
• Ali Larter (born 1976)American actress and model
• Mehmet Ali Ağca (born 1958)Turkish contract killer

People named Ali with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).

Where Ali is most common

• CA5,051
• MI4,937
• NY4,532
• TX3,308
• IL1,965
• FL1,794
• NJ1,727
• OH1,532
• PA1,487
• VA1,167

Relative to how many babies each state records, Ali is most concentrated in Michigan (3.3×), New Jersey (1.6×), New York (1.5×), Florida (1.3×).

Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.

Names of 2022

The most popular boys’ names the year Ali peaked:

• Liam
• Noah
• Oliver
• James
• Elijah
• William

All the names of 2022

Ali elsewhere

Counts come from each country's own records and are not comparable with the US figures above, which cover different years and a different definition of a recorded name. Where a country writes the name several ways, the spellings are added together and the most common is shown. A row marked name registrations is counting something else: Portugal ranks each of a child's two given names separately, so a girl registered Maria Leonor is in both the Maria row and the Leonor row, and that figure is not a number of children.

Ali: births by region

Parts of a country counted above, not extra births. The share is what makes the regions comparable: they differ in size by a factor of three hundred.

By canton, Ali is most concentrated in Basel-Stadt, where 0.17% of children were given it – 63 of them.

Ali: rank by region

In 2025, Ali was given 5 times or more in 3 regions of Belgium.

In 2002, Ali was among the 10 most common names in 1 region of Spain.

In 2017, Ali was among the 10 most common names in 1 region of Italy.

In 2025, Ali was given 2 times or more in 4 regions of Poland.

In 2025, with the country taken in 11 areas rather than 3, Ali appears in the lists for Brussels-Capital Region (12th), Province of Limburg (43rd), Province of Antwerp (51st), Province of East Flanders (76th), Province of Liège (86th), Province of Flemish Brabant (112th), Province of Hainaut (131st) and Province of West Flanders (178th).

Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children, Spain after 10 names, Italy after 10 names, Poland below 2 children – and published nothing after. So a region missing here is one where the name fell outside what was published, not one where it went unused. Places are shared where names tie, and the further down a list a place is, the more names can share it.

Ali by city

One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.

Ali among the living

How many people each country's register counts under the name, rather than how many were given it in any one year. Each register was read on one date, and they are not the same date.

A count of people on a register – the Netherlands on 1 January 2018, Finland on 4 August 2026 – and not of births, so it cannot be compared with the figures above. Names with very few bearers are withheld, and a dash in the first-forename column means the register would not say rather than that nobody goes by it.

Where Ali lives in Spain

Not a count of births but of people: 14,723 men called Ali were living in Spain on 1 January 2025, of every age, born in any year. Where they live is not spread evenly.

Men: the provinces where it is densest

Listed in 52 of Spain's 52 provinces. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.

Related names

• Alice
• Alicia
• Alison
• Alisha
• Aliyah
• Alina
• Alissa
• Alivia
• Alisa
• Alijah
• Aline
• Alia

Ali against another name

Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.

• Ali vs Alice
• Ali vs Alicia
• Ali vs Alison
• Ali vs Alisha
• Ali vs Aliyah
• Ali vs Alina

Compare Ali with a name of your own