Given name & surname
Hanif
“a true believer of Islam”
Hanif is used as a given name and a surname. One Arabic interpretation is “a true believer of Islam.”
Meaning & origin
What it means
One Arabic interpretation is “a true believer of Islam.”
Where it comes from
An origin associated with this spelling is Arabic.
How it developed
From Arabic حَنِيف (“true believer, righteous (person)”); its root is Arabic ح ن ف.
Adapted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0)
The story
Published U.S. birth records include this spelling as early as 1971. This is the earliest published observation available here, rather than a date for the name’s origin.
From dated birth records
Hanif through the years
- Babies since 1880
- 784
- 784 boys · 0 girls
- Most popular year
- 2004
- 29 babies
- 2025
- 8
- #9,205 for boys
- 2021–25 vs 2016–20
- +11%
- Rising
By the numbers
In 2025, this name appeared in 8 U.S. birth records for boys, ranking No. 9,205 among boys’ names. Average annual use for boys was 10.9% higher in 2021–2025 than in 2016–2020. Published U.S. population figures for this spelling include 914 as a first name in 2020; 1,567 as a surname in 2020.
From Social Security birth records and U.S. Census name counts for this exact spelling. Other spellings are counted separately.
Hanif’s family of names
Hanif has a feminine form in Hanifa. Hanif has a related form in Haneef. Hanif has a related form in Haneaf.
Inner ring: spellings · middle: nicknames and forms · outer: across languages.
Nicknames & forms 7
Diminutives, pet forms, short forms and variants used alongside the name.
Spellings & scripts 1
The same name written differently, including transliterations into other scripts.
Across languages 1
Equivalents and cognates in other languages, plus older forms it grew from.
People named Hanif
- Hanif KureishiEnglish writer (born 1954)
- Hanif KhanOlympic field hockey playerborn 1959
- Hanif MohammadPakistani cricketer (1934-2016)
- Hanif AbbasiPakistani politician and businessmanborn 1966
- Hanif BaliSwedish politicianborn 1987
- Muhammad Hanif JalandhariPakistani Islamic scholarborn 1963
- Hanif OmranzadehIranian footballerborn 1985
- Hanif KureshiIndian painter and artist1982–2024
- Hanif RamayPakistani politician1930–2006
Listed by how widely each person is written about, which says nothing about the name itself.
Appears in
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