Keilani
- Gender
- Female
- Meaning
- Glorious Chief
- Origin
- Hawaiian
About the Name Keilani
Keilani is a Hawaiian name combining elements that evoke the sky and the heavens with a sense of glory and chiefly distinction, often understood as "glorious chief" or "heavenly leader." Its flowing vowels and gentle rhythm capture the lyrical quality of Hawaiian names, in which words for sky, sea, light, and royalty frequently come together to form names of striking natural beauty and meaning.
Part of the name's recent appeal across the wider United States is exactly this melodic, three-syllable cadence, which feels at once exotic and easy for English speakers to say. It carries the warmth of island imagery and a sense of regal grace while remaining soft, approachable, and unmistakably feminine, qualities that have helped it travel well beyond Hawaii.
As a girls' name, Keilani is a genuinely contemporary arrival: it first entered the US Social Security top-1000 in 2018 and climbed quickly, reaching its peak in 2022 at rank #633, with roughly 2,600 girls given the name in just a few years. It stood at #751 as recently as 2024, marking Keilani as one of the fast-rising Hawaiian-rooted names of the early 2020s. Its blend of soaring, heavenly imagery and a soft, flowing sound has made it a standout among the island-inspired names embraced by parents today, graceful, evocative, and full of warmth.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Keilani
US Popularity History (2018–2025)
Annual US births named Keilani by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2022 with 465 girls named Keilani (girl rank #633 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #727 for girls (383 US births). That's 94 places below its 2022 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 Keilani 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 Keilani the strongest states are Hawaii, Mississippi, California.
Strongest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Hawaii | #154 | 40 |
| 2 | Mississippi | #504 | 32 |
| 3 | California | #586 | 559 |
| 4 | Florida | #600 | 273 |
| 5 | Texas | #608 | 340 |
| 6 | Wisconsin | #622 | 25 |
| 7 | Maryland | #625 | 43 |
| 8 | Arizona | #627 | 77 |
| 9 | South Carolina | #672 | 27 |
| 10 | Georgia | #677 | 116 |
Weakest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Indiana | #919 | 34 |
| 2 | New York | #872 | 76 |
| 3 | North Carolina | #862 | 59 |
| 4 | Louisiana | #755 | 39 |
| 5 | Illinois | #748 | 84 |
| 6 | Colorado | #745 | 43 |
| 7 | Kentucky | #726 | 17 |
| 8 | Tennessee | #723 | 33 |
| 9 | Massachusetts | #708 | 29 |
| 10 | Alabama | #700 | 44 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Keilani in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Looking for names like Keilani?
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 Keilani to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Keilani against today's most popular girls-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).