Khalil
- Gender
- Male
- Meaning
- Companion
- Origin
- Arabic
About the Name Khalil
Khalil descends from the Arabic Khalīl meaning "friend" or "intimate companion" — and is one of the epithets of Abraham in Islamic tradition (specifically Khalīl Allāh, meaning "friend of God"). The Hebron city in the West Bank is called al-Khalīl in Arabic, named in honor of Abraham, who according to Abrahamic tradition is buried there.
Notable bearers include Lebanese-American poet Kahlil Gibran (using the alternate Kahlil spelling, 1883–1931, the iconic Lebanese-American poet whose 1923 work The Prophet has been continuously in print and translated into over 100 languages); contemporary American basketball player Khalil Mack; and various contemporary Arab-American athletes.
Khalil's American climb has been steady: the name climbed into the US top 300 boys' rank by 2000 and held the top 300 since. The name has been driven primarily by Muslim-American and African-American naming. The name's appeal sits in three contemporary American naming preferences: the layered Arabic-Islamic-religious pedigree (Abraham/Khalīl Allāh), the in-built distinctive friend-of-God spiritual register, and the popular two-syllable -lil ending. Two firm syllables, soft consonants, and tonal warmth distinctive to Arabic-derived naming. The name reads as both classical-Islamic and contemporary American. Common nicknames Khal (the dominant short form, casual and warm), and the rare Lil each carry distinct registers; the alternate spellings Khalil, Kahlil, and Khaleel have their own SSA tracking. International forms include Khalil (essentially identical across Arabic-speaking countries), Kahlil (the alternate Western spelling used by Gibran), and the original Arabic Khalīl.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Khalil
US Popularity History (2000–2025)
Annual US births named Khalil by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2020 with 1,231 boys named Khalil (boy rank #275 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #384 for boys (826 US births). That's 109 places below its 2020 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 Khalil Most Popular?
Average boy-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 boys-name rankings — a per-capita measure that isn't biased toward large states. For Khalil the strongest states are District of Columbia, Louisiana, South Carolina.
Strongest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | District of Columbia | #157 | 65 |
| 2 | Louisiana | #184 | 314 |
| 3 | South Carolina | #200 | 253 |
| 4 | Mississippi | #204 | 180 |
| 5 | Georgia | #210 | 561 |
| 6 | Michigan | #257 | 378 |
| 7 | Maryland | #260 | 213 |
| 8 | Illinois | #263 | 449 |
| 9 | North Carolina | #274 | 405 |
| 10 | Virginia | #284 | 291 |
Weakest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Oregon | #653 | 20 |
| 2 | Colorado | #606 | 68 |
| 3 | New Jersey | #568 | 111 |
| 4 | Washington | #530 | 128 |
| 5 | Arizona | #523 | 129 |
| 6 | Minnesota | #494 | 113 |
| 7 | Iowa | #492 | 57 |
| 8 | Pennsylvania | #489 | 178 |
| 9 | California | #479 | 630 |
| 10 | Massachusetts | #471 | 75 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Khalil in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Variant Forms
| Name | Meaning | Gender | Origin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kahlil | Friend. | Male | Arabic |
Famous People Named Khalil
2 notable figures from history and culture who share the name Khalil.
- Khalil al-Wazir was a Palestinian leader and a prominent aide of Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Chairman Yasser Arafat.
- Khalil Gibran was a Lebanese-American writer and poet.
Looking for names like Khalil?
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 Khalil to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Khalil against today's most popular boys-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).