Kairi
- Pronunciation
- [Kai-ri]
- Gender
- Female
- Meaning
- Song
- Origin
- French
About the Name Kairi
Kairi is a short, melodic name often glossed as "song," and the two open syllables — Kai-ri — give it a genuinely lyrical, easy-to-say quality. It belongs to a wave of compact, vowel-rich names that travel comfortably across languages and cultures, and its bright sound has helped it appeal to parents seeking something gentle yet thoroughly modern. The fashionable Kai- opening links it visually to a whole family of contemporary favorites, while the soft -ri ending keeps it distinctly feminine.
Its rise tracks the broader taste for minimal, two-syllable girls' names that feel both fresh and quietly musical. Without heavy historical baggage to carry, Kairi reads as airy, current, and uncomplicated — the kind of choice that fits naturally alongside other streamlined picks of its generation and needs no spelling out twice. That simplicity is much of its charm: a name that lands cleanly the first time it is heard.
As a girls' name, Kairi first entered the US Social Security top-1000 in 2010 and climbed steadily to its peak in 2019 at #689. It held on in the rankings through 2023, when it stood at #987, and over its tracked span it accounted for 4,532 births among the top-1000 — a longer, steadier run than many names of its delicate style manage to achieve. Its appeal lies in that balance of sweetness and simplicity, a small, sunny name with real staying power.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Kairi
US Popularity History (2010–2023)
Annual US births named Kairi by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2019 with 421 girls named Kairi (girl rank #689 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2023, ranked #987 for girls (259 US births). That's 298 places below its 2019 peak.
Source: US Social Security Administration. Limitations: US birth-certificate data only; names appearing fewer than 5 times in a given year are suppressed for privacy; spelling variants are counted separately. For names that ranked outside the US top 100 before year 2000, only the years they reached the top 100 are shown — the chart may have gaps for less-popular historical names.
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Where in the US Is Kairi Most Popular?
Average girl-name rank within each state across 2016–2025 SSA records. A lower number means the name appears closer to the top of that state's girls-name rankings — a per-capita measure that isn't biased toward large states. For Kairi the strongest states are Hawaii, Nevada, Utah.
Strongest girls-name states
Weakest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Virginia | #923 | 48 |
| 2 | Texas | #923 | 163 |
| 3 | Georgia | #903 | 66 |
| 4 | Maryland | #849 | 20 |
| 5 | North Carolina | #845 | 65 |
| 6 | Florida | #833 | 149 |
| 7 | Pennsylvania | #826 | 87 |
| 8 | Michigan | #823 | 72 |
| 9 | Ohio | #814 | 72 |
| 10 | New York | #804 | 109 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Kairi in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Looking for names like Kairi?
A dedicated page with 60+ related names — spelling variants, rhymes, alliterations, same-origin matches, and shared meaning concepts — lives at its own URL so each kind of similarity gets a deeper treatment than fits here.
Compare Kairi to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Kairi against today's most popular girls-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).