Humanverse

Kendi

Kendi reached its high-water mark in 2007 at number 4,675, and has been recorded 668 times in all. In 2025 it ranked 9,457th. About 650 Kendis are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 21.

Popularity, 1880–2025

Births per year, 1880 to 2025 0 8 16 24 32 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

girls named Kendi boys named Kendi

By the numbers

Total US births
668
Estimated living today
650
Median age today
21
Peak year
2007
Best rank
4,675th
Rank in 2025
9,457th
First recorded
1962
Girls / boys
644 / 24

How old the living Kendis are

Born with the name each year, and how many of them are alive today, 1880 to 2025 0 8 16 24 32 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

born that year still alive today

Of the 668 babies given the name since 1962, about 650 are alive — 98 in every hundred. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 2004 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 Kendi is most common

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

Names of 2007

The most popular girls’ names the year Kendi peaked:

All the names of 2007

Kendi elsewhere

CountrySpelling BirthsBest rank
France boys Kendi 25 5,536th

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.

Kendi 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.

Country Spelling First forename Any forename
Finland girls Kendi 9

A count of people on a register – 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.

Related names

Kendi against another name

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

Compare Kendi with a name of your own

Try it on yourself

Source: US Social Security Administration, national and state baby-name files, 1880–2025. Counts include only births registered with the SSA, and names with fewer than five births in a year are not published. The living estimate applies SSA cohort life tables to those births; it counts people born in the United States, so it misses anyone who arrived later and anyone who has left.