Name Awesome

Sunil

Boys' name

Good, very

Sunil has been given to 989 babies in the U.S. since 1962. 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 1979, with 42 recorded.

Babies named Sunil, 2019

1 in 579,000

Sunil over time, 1880–2025

Boys
020406018801900192019401960198020002020

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Sunil: meaning, origin, and history

Good, very

Sanskrit

What Sunil means

Sunil means “good, very”.

Documented naming usage and pronunciation

Sunil is used in Hindi, Marathi, Bengali, Assamese, Gujarati, Punjabi, Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam and Nepali.

Dictionary etymologyReferences, data & attribution

From Sanskrit सुनील (sunīla, “very black or blue, dark”); ultimately from सु (su) + नील (nīla).

Excerpt from Wiktionary: Sunil (English) · CC BY-SA 4.0

Wiktionary material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Origin, language, and formation

Sunil is used in English. Its origins include Sanskrit.

Sunil comes through Sanskrit सुनील.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 989 boys were recorded with the name Sunil between 1962 and 2019. Its highest annual count was 42 in 1979; its best national rank was #1,461 in 1979.

How common is Sunil?

Sunil had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 2019, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 2019
1 in 579,000
6 of 3,472,229 births
Among boys only
1 in 299,000
<0.01% of boys
Rank, 2019
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
401,129 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Sunil 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 2019 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 401,129 children born in 2019 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Sunil. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Sunils were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Sunil was born before 1982 — so the typical Sunil is around 43 today.

Median birth year
1982
About 43 years old
Biggest decade
1970s
30.3% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
20.5%
Spread across generations
Recorded since 1950
989
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1970s — 30.3% of all recorded uses (300).

Is Sunil 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 1979 (42)
Years since peak
46
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
30.7% average annual change
Best rank ever
#1,461
1979

Spellings of Sunil

Sunil is not the most common spelling — Sunny is, with 36.3% against Sunil's 8.0%.

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 Sunil is used

Across 1910–2025, Sunil was most concentrated in New York — about 1 in 100,000 boys, against 1 in 261,554 across all states with data. It was least common in Texas (1 in —).

01 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1New York1 in 100,000
  2. 2California1 in —
  3. 3Illinois1 in —
  4. 4Pennsylvania1 in —
  5. 5Texas1 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. Sunil has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Sunil around the world

Where Sunil 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
    1996–2010
    #3,332
    in 2010
  • Scotland
    1982–1982
    #315
    in 1982
  • France
    1988–2022
    #5,729
    in 2022
  • Canada
    1991–2001
    #1,795
    in 2001
  • South Australia
    1973–2004
    #589
    in 2004

Popularity data from Office for National Statistics, National Records of Scotland, Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques, Statistics Canada and Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). ONS, NRS 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.

Sunil 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
#1,461
1979
Peak year
1979
42 that year
First recorded
1962
Last recorded
2019
All-time count
989
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Sunil

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

SunnySunDanilSunniSungSundayAnilSunnieSundeepSunaoSunayJenilSundanceSunjaySunelSundiataSanilSunwooNilKenilSuniaJainilPranilSunshine

Sibling names for Sunil

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 Sunil

Top names of 1979, Sunil's peak yearThe 1970s in fullOther names that peaked in 1979Boys' names starting with SSanskrit Boy Names