Alif
#12,093 in 2025Boys' nameMeaning not yet documented
Alif has been given to 181 babies in the U.S. since 1973. In 2025 it ranked #12,093 of 13,926 boys’ names in use. Its peak year was 2020, with 10 recorded.
Babies named Alif, 2025
1 in 663,000
Alif 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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.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 Alif?
Everything below is computed from the 2025 data — the most recent year available.
- Among all babies, 2025
- 1 in 663,000
- 5 of 3,315,165 births
- Among boys only
- 1 in 342,000
- <0.01% of boys
- Rank, 2025
- #12,093
- of 13,926 boys’ names in use
- Coin-flip room size
- 459,581 kids
- Even odds of a second one
Where Alif 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 459,581 children born in 2025 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Alif. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.
When Alifs were born
Half of everyone ever recorded as Alif was born before 2009 — so the typical Alif is around 16 today.
- Biggest decade
- 2000s
- 27.1% of all use
- Born in the last 25 years
- 72.4%
- A modern name
- Recorded since 1950
- 181
- People you could plausibly meet
2000s — 27.1% of all recorded uses (49).
Is Alif 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
- −1,086
- Places dropped
- Rank vs 5 years ago
- −4,578
- Places dropped
- Rank vs 10 years ago
- −1,384
- Places dropped
- Births vs 10 years ago
- 0.83×
- Fewer babies than then
- Share of its own peak
- 50.0%
- Peak was 2020 (10)
- Years since peak
- 5
- Years
- Year-to-year steadiness
- Shifting
- 22.9% average annual change
Spellings of Alif
Alif is not the most common spelling — Alan is, with 25.8% against Alif's 0.01%.
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 Alif is used
Across 1910–2025, Alif was most concentrated in New York — about 1 in — boys, against 1 in 1,332,384 across all states with data.
Most concentrated
- 1New York1 in —
Shading is the share of that state's recorded boys 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. Alif has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.
Alif around the world
Where Alif 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#2,664in 2025
- Ireland2010–2010#720in 2010
- France2021–2025#6,658in 2025
- Canada2012–2012#2,715in 2012
- South Australia2003–2007#680in 2007
Popularity data from Office for National Statistics, Central Statistics Office, Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques, Statistics Canada and Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). ONS data under Open Government Licence v3.0. CSO, CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0. INSEE data under Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0. StatCan data under Statistics Canada Open Licence.
Alif by the numbers
The raw record for each sex the name is used for.
Names similar to Alif
Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.
Sibling names for Alif
Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.