Name Awesome

Monifa

Girls' name

I am lucky

Monifa has been given to 416 babies in the U.S. since 1969. 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 1970, with 34 recorded.

Babies named Monifa, 1998

1 in 613,000

Monifa over time, 1880–2025

Girls
01020304018801900192019401960198020002020

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Monifa: meaning, origin, and history

I am lucky

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Monifa means

Monifa means “I am lucky”.

Documented naming usage and pronunciation

Monifa is used in Yoruba (Rare).

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 416 girls were recorded with the name Monifa between 1969 and 1998. Its highest annual count was 34 in 1970; its best national rank was #2,295 in 1970.

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.

How common is Monifa?

Monifa had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 1998, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 1998
1 in 613,000
6 of 3,677,189 births
Among girls only
1 in 294,000
<0.01% of girls
Rank, 1998
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
424,807 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Monifa 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 1998 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 424,807 children born in 1998 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Monifa. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Monifas were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Monifa was born before 1977 — so the typical Monifa is around 48 today.

Median birth year
1977
About 48 years old
Biggest decade
1970s
55.3% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
70.4%
A modern name
Recorded since 1950
416
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1970s — 55.3% of all recorded uses (230).

Is Monifa 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 1970 (34)
Years since peak
55
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
32.4% average annual change
Best rank ever
#2,295
1970

Spellings of Monifa

Monifa is not the most common spelling — Monica is, with 54.1% against Monifa's 0.09%.

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 Monifa is used

Across 1910–2025, Monifa was most concentrated in New York — about 1 in 100,000 girls, against 1 in 125,598 across all states with data. It was least common in Michigan (1 in —).

01 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1New York1 in 100,000
  2. 2Georgia1 in —
  3. 3Michigan1 in —

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. Monifa has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Monifa around the world

Where Monifa 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
    1997–1999
    #3,225
    in 1999

Popularity data from Office for National Statistics. ONS data under Open Government Licence v3.0.

Monifa by the numbers

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

As a girl's name

Rank in 2025
Unranked
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
—
Best rank ever
#2,295
1970
Peak year
1970
34 that year
First recorded
1969
Last recorded
1998
All-time count
416
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Monifa

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

MonciaMonitaMontiMonseHanifaMonekaMontezMoniceLatifaMonieMoneshaMoniquaMontieMoneeMontiaMoniaMonigueMontineMonicMontoyaMonayShifaMonquieMonea

Sibling names for Monifa

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 Monifa

Top names of 1970, Monifa's peak yearThe 1970s in fullOther names that peaked in 1970Girls' names starting with M