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Latifah

#14,156 in 2025Girls' name

Alternate transcription of Latifa

Latifah has been given to 1,476 babies in the U.S. since 1974. In 2025 it ranked #14,156 of 17,293 girls’ names in use. Its peak year was 1990, with 300 recorded.

Babies named Latifah, 2025

1 in 553,000

Latifah over time, 1880–2025

Girls
010020030018801900192019401960198020002020

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Latifah: meaning, origin, and history

Alternate transcription of Latifa

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Latifah means

Latifah is a alternate transcription of Latifa.

Documented naming usage and pronunciation

Latifah is used in Arabic, Malay and Indonesian.

Another recorded pronunciation is /la.ˈtˤiː.fa/ and /la.ˈti.fah/ for Latifah.

Meaning behind the documented name family

The name developed through Latifah → Latifa → لَطِيفَة → لَطِيف. The family’s meaning is “gentle, nice, kind”, recorded in Arabic with the source elements لَطِيف.

Related names and everyday forms

Related names include Latifa.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 1,476 girls were recorded with the name Latifah between 1974 and 2025. Its highest annual count was 300 in 1990; its best national rank was #700 in 1990.

Over 5 years its rank fell, from #11,668 in 2020 to #14,156 in 2025.

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 Latifah?

Everything below is computed from the 2025 data — the most recent year available.

Among all babies, 2025
1 in 553,000
6 of 3,315,165 births
Among girls only
1 in 268,000
<0.01% of girls
Rank, 2025
#14,156
of 17,293 girls’ names in use
Coin-flip room size
382,984 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Latifah sits on the popularity scale

Rarest published (5 a year)#1 — Olivia (13,544)

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.

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

Put another way: gather 382,984 children born in 2025 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Latifah. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Latifahs were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Latifah was born before 1991 — so the typical Latifah is around 34 today.

Median birth year
1991
About 34 years old
Biggest decade
1990s
64.2% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
11.0%
Spread across generations
Recorded since 1950
1,476
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1990s — 64.2% of all recorded uses (947).

Is Latifah 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
+2,463
Places climbed
Rank vs 5 years ago
−2,488
Places dropped
Rank vs 10 years ago
—
Not ranked then
Births vs 10 years ago
—
Not published both years
Share of its own peak
2.0%
Peak was 1990 (300)
Years since peak
35
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
29.3% average annual change
Best rank ever
#700
1990

Spellings of Latifah

Latifah is not the most common spelling — Lailah is, with 25.3% against Latifah's 5.4%.

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 Latifah is used

Across 1910–2025, Latifah was most concentrated in Delaware — about 1 in 50,000 girls, against 1 in 139,423 across all states with data. It was least common in Texas (1 in —).

02 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1Delaware1 in 50,000
  2. 2North Carolina1 in 50,000
  3. 3New Jersey1 in 50,000
  4. 4Pennsylvania1 in 50,000
  5. 5South Carolina1 in 50,000
  6. 6Florida1 in 100,000
  7. 7Georgia1 in 100,000
  8. 8Illinois1 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. Latifah has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Latifah around the world

Where Latifah 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 & Wales
    1996–2022
    #2,674
    in 2022
  • France
    1994–2023
    #5,919
    in 2023
  • Canada
    1991–2013
    #3,199
    in 2013
  • South Australia
    2001–2009
    #818
    in 2009

Popularity data from Office for National Statistics, 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. INSEE data under Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0. StatCan data under Statistics Canada Open Licence. CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0.

Latifah by the numbers

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

As a girl's name

Rank in 2025
#14,156
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
Down 2,488
Best rank ever
#700
1990
Peak year
1990
300 that year
First recorded
1974
Last recorded
2025
All-time count
1,476
Count in 2025
6

Names similar to Latifah

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

LateefahLatoyiaLatifaLatrinaLataviaLaticiaLatriceLatreseLatoriaLateshaLatreceLatonjaLataraLatasiaLatashiaLatrishaLatresaLatrellLatoryaLatarshaLateciaLatricaLatinaLatoshia

Sibling names for Latifah

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 Latifah

Top names of 1990, Latifah's peak yearThe 1990s in fullOther names that peaked in 1990Girls' names starting with LMalay Girl Names