Imani is a Swahili name, which means ‘faith’. In the U.S., it is used since the late 1980s.
Imani is a first name typically given to girls, but in rare cases also used as a boys name.
The name Imani isn’t among the current fashionable names in our top 10 stats, but nonetheless, it’s still very popular and common. In our SmartGenius ranking of all girls names, Imani ranks 468. Recently, out of every 10,000 newborn girls, approximately 4 were named Imani. In the entire USA, approximately 24,357 people – children, adults and seniors – currently bear the name Imani. That is 0.01 % of all living Americans.
Imani is a Swahili name, which means ‘faith’. In the U.S., it is used since the late 1980s.
The Swahili language... is widely spoken in several East African countries such as Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda.
Imani is a phenomenon of Generation X and Y. Previously, the name wasn't really on the radar of expectant parents. Schoolkids of the early 20th century probably didn't have classmates named Imani - until this very name unexpectedly cried out for attention and peaked in popularity at rank number 223 in 1996. Although it has never reached the top 100 list, this girls' name seems to have been in vogue for a while, which makes Imani really in tune with her generation.
In years where the graph has no value, the name Imani was given less than five times or even none at all in the entire USA.
666 babies were named Imani in 2022 - that's 1 in 238,699 newborn girls. With this number, the girls' name Imani ranked 438 in our SmartGenius first name statistics in 2022, the most recent year for which records are available.
You may not know anyone named Imani, but there’s a good chance you live in the same state as someone with that name. In fact, 39 states are home to women and girls named Imani. (To be fair, a given name is only included in a state’s official statistics if there are at least five people with that name living in that state – so it’s entirely possible that there are still a few women and girls named Imani living in one state or another. If your name is Imani and you live outside of the states highlighted on the map, please let us know so we can refine our statistics even further). And while the first name is present in many states, it is still not one of the popular ones. In Maryland, which has the most people named Imani relative to the population, you still have to ask 2,341 women and girls their names before you hear Imani as an answer just once.
Well, you might say, you probably figured that out yourself! But what you might not know is: The letter I is pretty rare as an initial letter for girls' names: only 1.7% of all common girls' names in the US begin with an I. The most common first letters of girls' names, by the way, are A, S and M, while U, X and Q are the least common initials of girls' names.
With five letters, the name Imani is comparatively short. In fact, 17.0% of all common first names in the US consist of exactly five letters. Only 7% of all first names are even shorter, while 75% have more than five letters. On average, first names in the US (not counting hyphenated names) are 6.5 letters long. There are no significant differences between boys' and girls' names.
That means that since 1.7% of all girls’ names begin with an I, this initial occurs only about half as often as the other letters on average. Nevertheless, there are of course single names that begin with an I, which are quite popular
If your name is Imani and someone asks after your name, you can of course just tell them what it is. But sometimes that isn't so easy - what if it's too loud, and you don't understand them well? Or what if the other person is so far away that you can see them but not hear them? In these situations, you can communicate your name in so many other ways: you call spell it, sign it, or even use a flag to wave it...
So that everyone really understands you when you have to spell the name Imani, you can simply say:
Igloo
Mouse
Apple
Nut
Igloo
Braille is made up of dots, which the blind and visually impaired can feel to read words.
Imani
Imani
Just use American Sign Language!
These flags are used for maritime communication - each flag represents a letter.
I
M
A
N
I
In the navy, sailors of two ships might wave flags to each other to send messages. A sailor holds two flags in specific positions to represent different letters.
I
M
A
N
I
In Morse code, letters and other characters are represented only by a series of short and long tones. For example, a short tone followed by a long tone stands for the letter A. Imani sounds like this:
