Kweli
UnisexBoys' nameGirls' nameMeaning not yet documented
Kweli has been given to 239 babies in the U.S. since 2000. 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 2003, with 34 recorded. It's used for both sexes: 95% boys, 5% girls all-time.
Babies named Kweli, 2023
1 in 663,000
Kweli 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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.
Girls or boys — Kweli over time
In 2023, Kweli went to 0% girls and 100% boys.
A sex is only published in years it reached five applications, so a stretch at 0% or 100% means the other side stayed under that floor — not that it was never used.
How common is Kweli?
Kweli 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 663,000
- 5 of 3,314,783 births
- Among boys only
- 1 in 342,000
- <0.01% of boys
- Rank, 2023
- Unranked
- Fewer than 5 uses
- Coin-flip room size
- 459,528 kids
- Even odds of a second one
Where Kweli sits on the popularity scale
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.
Put another way: gather 459,528 children born in 2023 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Kweli. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.
When Kwelis were born
Half of everyone ever recorded as Kweli was born before 2006 — so the typical Kweli is around 19 today.
- Biggest decade
- 2000s
- 65.4% of all use
- Born in the last 25 years
- 100.0%
- A modern name
- Recorded since 1950
- 228
- People you could plausibly meet
2000s — 65.4% of all recorded uses (149).
Is Kweli 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 2003 (34)
- Years since peak
- 22
- Years
- Year-to-year steadiness
- Volatile
- 61.8% average annual change
Spellings of Kweli
Kweli is not the most common spelling — Eli is, with 91.2% against Kweli's 0.14%.
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 Kweli is used
Across 1910–2025, Kweli was most concentrated in North Carolina — about 1 in — boys, against 1 in 705,729 across all states with data.
Most concentrated
- 1North Carolina1 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. Kweli has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.
Kweli around the world
Where Kweli 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.
- France2017–2017#5,188in 2017
- South Australia2011–2011#784in 2011
Popularity data from Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques and Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). INSEE data under Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0. CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0.
Kweli by the numbers
The raw record for each sex the name is used for.
As a boy's name
Names similar to Kweli
Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.
Sibling names for Kweli
Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.