Akeelah
#7,144 in 2025Girls' nameMeaning not yet documented
Akeelah has been given to 1,533 babies in the U.S. since 1989. In 2025 it ranked #7,144 of 17,293 girls’ names in use. Its peak year was 2006, with 403 recorded.
Babies named Akeelah, 2025
1 in 221,000
Akeelah over time, 1880–2025
Based on births in the U.S. Babies given the name each year. Hover the chart — or focus it and use the arrow keys — for any year. Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.
How common is Akeelah?
Everything below is computed from the 2025 data — the most recent year available.
- Among all babies, 2025
- 1 in 221,000
- 15 of 3,315,165 births
- Among girls only
- 1 in 107,000
- <0.01% of girls
- Rank, 2025
- #7,144
- of 17,293 girls’ names in use
- Coin-flip room size
- 153,194 kids
- Even odds of a second one
Where Akeelah sits on the popularity scale
Chance at least one other child shares the name
If the other children were drawn at random from the 2025 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.
Put another way: gather 153,194 children born in 2025 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Akeelah. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.
When Akeelahs were born
Half of everyone ever recorded as Akeelah was born before 2008 — so the typical Akeelah is around 17 today.
- Biggest decade
- 2000s
- 61.4% of all use
- Born in the last 25 years
- 98.3%
- A modern name
- Recorded since 1950
- 1,533
- People you could plausibly meet
2000s — 61.4% of all recorded uses (942).
Is Akeelah rising or falling?
Rank movement and count movement can disagree — the number of distinct names in use keeps growing, so a name holding a steady count still slides down the list. Both are shown.
- Rank vs 1 year ago
- −1,343
- Places dropped
- Rank vs 5 years ago
- −1,656
- Places dropped
- Rank vs 10 years ago
- −3,153
- Places dropped
- Births vs 10 years ago
- 0.41×
- Fewer babies than then
- Share of its own peak
- 3.7%
- Peak was 2006 (403)
- Years since peak
- 19
- Years
- Year-to-year steadiness
- Shifting
- 20.8% average annual change
Akeelah’s breakout year
Among the small set of names that had a single, unmistakable year — a surge well above the years on either side of it.
In 2006, 403 girls were named Akeelah — about #708 that year — roughly 4.5× as many as in the surrounding years, before it settled back. What the data can’t say is why; the story behind the year is one you’ll likely recognise. Other one-hit wonders
Spellings of Akeelah
Akeelah is not the most common spelling — Akilah is, with 17.6% against Akeelah's 9.0%.
Grouped by closeness of spelling (up to two letter changes), same sex, with a floor on all-time use. It catches Sophia/Sofia and Aiden/Ayden, and misses spellings that sound alike but look different, like Sean and Shawn.
Where Akeelah is used
Across 1910–2025, Akeelah was most concentrated in Mississippi — about 1 in 33,333 girls, against 1 in 153,059 across all states with data. It was least common in Wisconsin (1 in —).
Most concentrated
- 1Mississippi1 in 33,333
- 2Alabama1 in 50,000
- 3Florida1 in 50,000
- 4Georgia1 in 50,000
- 5Louisiana1 in 50,000
- 6Arkansas1 in 100,000
- 7Illinois1 in 100,000
- 8North Carolina1 in 100,000
Shading is the share of that state's recorded girls given this name, not the raw count — otherwise the map would just show which states are biggest. Unshaded states have no published records for this period. U.S. birth records suppress state-year counts below 5; state counts therefore don't add up to the national total. Every state links to its full rankings. Akeelah has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.
Akeelah around the world
Where Akeelah ranks in official birth records elsewhere in the world. Rankings only — the number of births isn’t comparable between places, so it isn’t shown.
- England & Wales2007–2025#4,201in 2025
- Canada2006–2017#3,188in 2017
Popularity data from Office for National Statistics and Statistics Canada. ONS data under Open Government Licence v3.0. StatCan data under Statistics Canada Open Licence.
Akeelah by the numbers
The raw record for each sex the name is used for.
Names similar to Akeelah
Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.
Sibling names for Akeelah
Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.