Name Awesome

Atef

Boys' name

To incline, to sympathize, through عَاطِف

Atef has been given to 17 babies in the U.S. since 1994. It was used fewer than 5 times in 2025, so it doesn't appear in the latest year's list — today it's a genuinely uncommon pick. Its peak year was 1994, with 6 recorded.

Babies named Atef, 2023

1 in 552,000

Atef over time, 1880–2025

Boys
024618801900192019401960198020002020

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Atef: meaning, origin, and history

To incline, to sympathize, through عَاطِف

Arabic

What Atef means

Atef belongs to the name family reached through Atef → عَاطِف. Its meaning is “to incline, to sympathize”.

Origin, language, and formation

Atef is used in English. Its origins include Arabic.

Atef comes through Arabic عَاطِف.

Related names and everyday forms

Related names include عَاطِف.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 17 boys were recorded with the name Atef between 1994 and 2023. Its highest annual count was 6 in 1994; its best national rank was #7,848 in 1994.

Sources & methodologyReferences, data & attribution

Meaning, origin, and language notes draw on the references below.

American popularity figures use published Social Security Administration records for this exact spelling. Counts below five for a name, sex, and year are omitted.

Wiktionary material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

How common is Atef?

Atef had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 2023, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 2023
1 in 552,000
6 of 3,314,783 births
Among boys only
1 in 285,000
<0.01% of boys
Rank, 2023
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
382,940 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Atef sits on the popularity scale

Rarest published (5 a year)#1 — Liam (20,818)

Chance at least one other child shares the name

If the other children were drawn at random from the 2023 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.

Class of 20Under 1%
Class of 30Under 1%
Grade of 100Under 1%
School of 500Under 1%

Put another way: gather 382,940 children born in 2023 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Atef. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Atefs were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Atef was born before 2016 — so the typical Atef is around 9 today.

Median birth year
2016
About 9 years old
Biggest decade
1990s
35.3% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
64.7%
A modern name
Recorded since 1950
17
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1990s — 35.3% of all recorded uses (6).

Is Atef 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
—
Not ranked then
Rank vs 5 years ago
New entry
Not ranked then
Rank vs 10 years ago
—
Not ranked then
Births vs 10 years ago
—
Not published both years
Share of its own peak
0%
Peak was 1994 (6)
Years since peak
31
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Not enough data
Too few years
Best rank ever
#7,848
1994

Spellings of Atef

Atef is not the most common spelling — Alex is, with 34.9% against Atef'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.

Atef around the world

Where Atef 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.

  • France
    1973–2023
    #5,428
    in 2023
  • Canada
    2018–2018
    #2,536
    in 2018
  • South Australia
    1994–2000
    #556
    in 2000

Popularity data from Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques, Statistics Canada and Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). INSEE data under Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0. StatCan data under Statistics Canada Open Licence. CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0.

Atef by the numbers

The raw record for each sex the name is used for.

As a boy's name

Rank in 2025
Unranked
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
—
Best rank ever
#7,848
1994
Peak year
1994
6 that year
First recorded
1994
Last recorded
2023
All-time count
17
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Atef

Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.

AtenAtemAterAtesAteeb

Sibling names for Atef

Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.

Explore around Atef

Top names of 1994, Atef's peak yearThe 1990s in fullOther names that peaked in 1994Boys' names starting with A