Amari
- Pronunciation
- [A-ma-ri]
- Gender
- Male
- Meaning
- Yoruba Of Nigeria Name Meaning "Strength, Builder."
- Origin
- African
About the Name Amari
Amari has multiple proposed origins. The most credible direct etymology connects Amari to the West African Yoruba language, where it can mean "strength" or "builder." A separate Hebrew/Arabic line connects Amari to the Hebrew/Arabic root meaning "long-lived" or "prosperity." A third reading derives Amari from the Italian or Latin amare (to love) — though this is largely a folk etymology.
The name's contemporary American emergence is essentially a 21st-century phenomenon, particularly within African-American and Black-Caribbean naming communities where the name's various positive etymologies resonate. The name has been used for both boys and girls in modern American naming, making it one of the genuinely gender-neutral names in contemporary American usage.
Notable bearers are largely modern: American basketball player Amari Cooper (NFL wide receiver), basketball player Amari Stoudemire, and various contemporary American R&B and hip-hop artists. The name climbed from outside the US top 1000 in 1995 to the US top 200 boys' rank by 2014 and the top 200 since. Combined boys' and girls' usage gives the name a substantial American naming volume.
The name's appeal sits in three contemporary American naming preferences: the multi-cultural etymological flexibility (Yoruba/Hebrew/Italian readings each resonate with different parental aesthetics), the in-built positive meanings, and the three flowing syllables. The name reads as both modern and tonally distinctive across different cultural communities. Common nicknames Mari, Mari-mari, and the rare Ari each carry distinct registers; the alternate spelling Amari has remained the dominant form since the name has limited pre-modern history to anchor alternate spellings. International variants are minimal since the name's American naming is recent and demographically specific.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Amari
US Popularity History (2000–2025)
Annual US births named Amari by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2023 with 2,419 boys named Amari (boy rank #151 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #185 for boys (2,000 US births). That's 34 places below its 2023 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 Amari 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 Amari the strongest states are District of Columbia, Maryland, Delaware.
Strongest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | District of Columbia | #78 | 126 |
| 2 | Maryland | #108 | 549 |
| 3 | Delaware | #109 | 106 |
| 4 | Mississippi | #116 | 265 |
| 5 | Alabama | #117 | 451 |
| 6 | Rhode Island | #126 | 46 |
| 7 | Georgia | #137 | 845 |
| 8 | New Jersey | #145 | 619 |
| 9 | Virginia | #150 | 577 |
| 10 | South Carolina | #160 | 313 |
Weakest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Utah | #452 | 49 |
| 2 | Oklahoma | #387 | 110 |
| 3 | Minnesota | #384 | 120 |
| 4 | Iowa | #371 | 92 |
| 5 | Oregon | #370 | 114 |
| 6 | Idaho | #360 | 18 |
| 7 | Kentucky | #337 | 142 |
| 8 | Kansas | #325 | 112 |
| 9 | Washington | #323 | 230 |
| 10 | California | #317 | 1,146 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Amari in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Looking for names like Amari?
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 Amari to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Amari against today's most popular boys-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).
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