Mali
Mali is given to both girls and boys: 37 girls and 8 boys were given it in 2025 (#3,953 among girls’ names and #9,402 among boys’, #6,062 among all names counting both); 1,495 Americans have been recorded with it since 1967 (Social Security Administration, published May 2026).
An estimated 1,480 Americans named Mali and born in the U.S. are alive in 2026 (99% of everyone recorded); the median is 15 years old and half are between 7 and 23.
Girls and boys together; gaps are years SSA did not record (fewer than 5 births).
Births of Mali by year: SSA national baby-name file, 1880-2025, published May 8, 2026. SSA’s notes on the data.
What does Mali mean?
Wiktionary, Norwegian Bokmål section
Mali is “a female given name.”
Either a Norwegian form of Magdalene or a short form of Amalie. In the first analysis, the name belongs to the same Norwegian name family as Malene and Malin, ultimately continuing Ancient Greek Μαγδαληνή (Magdalēnḗ, “woman from Magdala”), the byname of Mary Magdalene, from Μαγδαλά (Magdalá, “Magdala”). The Norwegian form developed through the considerable shortening and adaptation characteristic of traditional Scandinavian forms of the name. In the second analysis, Mali is a shortened form of Amalie. The latter is a Norwegian form of the Latinized Germanic name Amalia, ultimately based on Germanic personal names containing Proto-Germanic *amalą (“hard work, toil, struggle”). The two proposed origins are etymologically unrelated.
Meaning: Wiktionary, Norwegian Bokmål section, as of Sep 25, 2026 (CC BY‑SA 4.0).
How popular is Mali?
#3,953 among girls’ names, 2025
Mali fell from #3,741 in 2015 to #3,953 in 2025 among girls’ names, although its share of girls born held at 23.0 per million.
69 babies in 2019, the peak
Mali peaked in 2019, when 69 babies were given it (64 girls, #2,700 among girls’ names). The 45 births of 2025 (girls and boys) are 65% of that peak.
Births by sex.
| Year | Births | Rank | Per million girls |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 37 | #3,953 | 23.0 |
| 2024 | 43 | #3,620 | 26.5 |
| 2023 | 59 | #2,875 | 36.8 |
| 2022 | 46 | #3,452 | 28.0 |
| 2021 | 48 | #3,324 | 29.3 |
| 2020 | 49 | #3,213 | 30.3 |
| 2019 | 64 | #2,700 | 38.1 |
| 2018 | 32 | #4,416 | 18.8 |
| 2017 | 44 | #3,525 | 25.5 |
| 2016 | 37 | #4,053 | 20.9 |
Every recorded year (52)
| Year | Births | Rank | Per million girls |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 41 | #3,741 | 23.0 |
| 2014 | 52 | #3,169 | 29.1 |
| 2013 | 43 | #3,614 | 24.5 |
| 2012 | 48 | #3,405 | 27.3 |
| 2011 | 48 | #3,390 | 27.3 |
| 2010 | 42 | #3,727 | 23.6 |
| 2009 | 52 | #3,229 | 28.3 |
| 2008 | 65 | #2,793 | 34.4 |
| 2007 | 46 | #3,574 | 23.9 |
| 2006 | 37 | #4,052 | 19.5 |
| 2005 | 43 | #3,480 | 23.3 |
| 2004 | 35 | #4,055 | 19.1 |
| 2003 | 55 | #2,821 | 30.1 |
| 2002 | 29 | #4,341 | 16.1 |
| 2001 | 24 | #4,936 | 13.3 |
| 2000 | 28 | #4,357 | 15.4 |
| 1999 | 26 | #4,394 | 14.7 |
| 1998 | 15 | #6,578 | 8.5 |
| 1997 | 20 | #5,141 | 11.5 |
| 1996 | 14 | #6,599 | 8.0 |
| 1995 | 15 | #6,140 | 8.5 |
| 1994 | 11 | #7,945 | 6.2 |
| 1993 | 9 | #9,210 | 5.0 |
| 1992 | 13 | #6,894 | 7.1 |
| 1991 | 10 | #8,349 | 5.3 |
| 1990 | 6 | #12,299 | 3.2 |
| 1989 | 8 | #9,278 | 4.3 |
| 1988 | 11 | #6,925 | 6.2 |
| 1987 | 7 | #9,394 | 4.0 |
| 1986 | 9 | #7,485 | 5.2 |
| 1985 | 10 | #6,750 | 5.8 |
| 1984 | 5 | #11,452 | 3.0 |
| 1983 | 6 | #9,728 | 3.6 |
| 1982 | 8 | #7,908 | 4.7 |
| 1981 | 12 | #5,766 | 7.2 |
| 1980 | 5 | #11,419 | 3.0 |
| 1978 | 8 | #7,368 | 5.2 |
| 1977 | 9 | #6,645 | 5.9 |
| 1976 | 5 | #10,207 | 3.4 |
| 1974 | 5 | #9,620 | 3.4 |
| 1971 | 5 | #9,069 | 3.0 |
| 1967 | 7 | #5,805 | 4.2 |
Ranks and shares: girls’ names in each year’s SSA file; share of all girls SSA recorded that year.
Is Mali a boy’s or a girl’s name?
Of the 1,495 Americans recorded as Mali, 94% are girls and 6% boys.
Years with fewer than 20 babies given the name are left blank.
Girls and boys named Mali: the SSA national file counts each sex separately.
How many people are named Mali, and how old are they?
1,480 alive in 2026, estimated
That is 99% of the 1,495 Americans ever recorded as Mali. The median Mali alive today is 15 years old; half are between 7 and 23.
The 2020 Census counted 1,809 people named Mali (1,620 women and girls, 189 men and boys). SSA’s births carried forward to Census day, April 1, 2020, predict 1,166 born in the U.S. The Census count is 1.6 times that prediction. Possible reasons: the Census records the name people give, which for many is the short form Mali rather than the name on their birth record, and it counts people born abroad, whom SSA’s files leave out.
Alive today, by age
Alive today, by generation
| Generation | Born | Alive |
|---|---|---|
| Generation X | 1965-1980 | 48 |
| Millennials | 1981-1996 | 155 |
| Generation Z | 1997-2012 | 623 |
| Generation Alpha | 2013-2025 | 652 |
An estimate, not a count. SSA’s files count people born in the United States who received a Social Security number, so anyone born abroad is not in them; before 1937 most people got a number as adults, and their survival is counted from that age.
Living estimate: SSA births carried forward with the survival rates in SSA’s cohort life tables (2024 Trustees Report) for each birth year and sex. How the estimate is made. Count: Census Bureau, first names in the 2020 Census (released April 14, 2026; names reported 100 or more times, with the Bureau’s disclosure-avoidance adjustment).
Names spelled alike
Of these 8 names spelled alike, given to 52,827 babies since 1880, Mali is the eighth most given (2.8% of them). In 2025 it was given to 45 of their 1,315 babies (3.4%), the sixth most given that year.
Spelled alike: names in the SSA national file with the same pattern of letters and sounds and at most two letters apart, and Wiktionary’s listed forms; births since 1880 and in 2025, and each name’s peak year, from the SSA national file, published May 8, 2026. Some are separate names, not spellings of one.
Names that rose and fell in the same decades as Mali
Names whose births rose and fell across the same decades, measured on each decade’s share of births.
Similar histories: each decade’s share of births, from the SSA national file, 1880-2025, published May 8, 2026. SSA’s notes on the data.
More about Mali and names like it
- Compare Mali and MaliaBirths, ranks, peak and the living estimate side by side.
- The most given names of the 2010sMali peaked in 2019.
- California’s most given namesThe state where SSA recorded the most babies named Mali since 1910.
- The top names of 2019The year the most babies were named Mali.
- The names of Generation AlphaMost people named Mali alive today were born 2013-2025.
- Names starting with MMost given first.