Ni: meaning, origin & popularity

Meaning & origin

Where it comes from

Ni comes from Chinese.

How it developed

From Chinese 郳.

The story

Published U.S. birth records include this spelling as early as 1983. This is the earliest published observation available here, rather than a date for the name’s origin.

From dated birth records

Ni through the years

Babies since 1880: 22; 0 boys · 22 girls
Most popular year: 2005; 7 babies
2025: 0; Outside the ranked list
2021–25 vs 2016–20: —; Too few births to compare

Ni in U.S. Social Security birth records, 1983–2025, per million girls born. Years with fewer than five births for a sex are not published and appear as zero. Use the arrow keys to step through years.

By the numbers

The most recent published U.S. birth count for girls is 5 in 2014. Later missing counts do not mean the name went unused. Its largest published annual count for girls was 7 in 2005. Published U.S. population figures for this spelling include 1,854 as a first name in 2020; 7,267 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.

Ni’s family of names

In Burmese usage, Ni is a Roman-alphabet rendering of နီ. In Greek usage, Ni as a surname is a transliteration of Νι. In English usage, Ni as a surname was borrowed from the Chinese form 郳.

Walk Ni’s family in the name graph

Inner ring: spellings · outer: across languages.

Hover or tab through the constellation to see how each name is related. Bigger dots are names more people in the U.S. share.

Spellings & scripts 2

The same name written differently, including transliterations into other scripts.

Across languages 5

Equivalents and cognates in other languages, plus older forms it grew from.

People named Ni

Listed by how widely each person is written about, which says nothing about the name itself.

Similar names

If you love Ni, these share its style, era, origin or sound, from outside its own family.

Chinese · Modern

Sibling ideas

Names that share Ni’s feel without repeating its first letter or rhyming with it.

A brother for Ni

A sister for Ni

Your shortlist

Ni