Levi: Meaning of Baby Name Levi

About the Name Levi

Levi descends from the Hebrew Levi, traditionally interpreted as "joined" or "attached" — from the verb lavah. The biblical Levi is the third son of the patriarch Jacob and his wife Leah, who explained the name with: "now my husband will become attached to me" (Genesis 29:34). Levi became the namesake of one of the twelve tribes of Israel, and uniquely among the tribes the Levites were set apart for religious service rather than receiving territorial inheritance — making the name carry an inherent priestly register.

The name's English-language presence is largely a product of Puritan Old Testament revivalism in 17th-century New England, alongside Caleb, Joshua, and Samuel. The most influential American Levi is Levi Strauss (1829–1902), the Bavarian-born Jewish merchant who co-founded the company that produced the first riveted denim work pants in 1873 — making the name globally recognizable as a brand for over 150 years. Earlier, Levi Coffin (1798–1877), a Quaker abolitionist, ran one of the most active Underground Railroad stations and was sometimes called the "President of the Underground Railroad."

The modern Levi surge is part of the broader return to short Old Testament boys' names alongside Eli, Asher, and Ezra. Levi climbed from outside the US top 100 in 2000 to the top 15 by 2020. The name's appeal is its compact, lived-in quality — two firm syllables, instantly readable, religiously anchored without feeling overtly formal, and now carrying a faint mid-century-Americana texture from the brand association. Common nicknames are scarce because the name is already short — Lev and the rare Lee occasionally — and direct variants include the original Hebrew Levi, Yiddish Leib, and the related surname Levy.

Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.

Quick Facts About Levi

1,531

Hebrew baby names in our dictionary

695

Hebrew male names

103

4-letter L-names in our dictionary

389

L-male names total

2000–2025

years of US SSA records (26 total)

164,477

total US births named Levi (all years)

US Popularity History (2000–2025)

➖ Steady: Levi edged up 6 places in the US boys ranking over the last 5 years (#18 in 2020 → #12 in 2025).

Annual US births named Levi by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2022 with 9,861 boys named Levi (boy rank #12 that year).

Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #12 for boys (9,642 US births).

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.

Where in the US Is Levi 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 Levi the strongest states are Wisconsin, Tennessee, Louisiana.

Strongest boys-name states

#	State	Avg rank	Births
1	Wisconsin	#11	1,918
2	Tennessee	#12	2,330
3	Louisiana	#13	1,335
4	Kentucky	#13	1,569
5	Minnesota	#13	1,783
6	North Carolina	#13	3,243
7	Michigan	#15	2,918
8	Vermont	#16	173
9	Hawaii	#18	291
10	Maine	#18	367

Weakest boys-name states

#	State	Avg rank	Births
1	District of Columbia	#99	116
2	New Jersey	#72	1,227
3	Connecticut	#50	649
4	Massachusetts	#47	1,287
5	New York	#45	3,486
6	Montana	#44	197
7	North Dakota	#40	208
8	Maryland	#37	1,199
9	Rhode Island	#36	243
10	Illinois	#36	2,448

Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Levi in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.

Variant Forms

Name	Meaning	Gender	Origin
Lev	Lion	Male	Czechoslovakian
Levey	United	Male	Hebrew
Lewi	United	Male	Hebrew

Looking for names like Levi?

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.

See all names like Levi →

Compare Levi to Other Popular Names

Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Levi against today's most popular boys-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).

Levi vs Liam 239,320 births since 2014

Levi vs Noah 230,181 births since 2014

Levi vs Oliver 164,076 births since 2014

Levi vs William 159,918 births since 2014

Levi vs James 157,850 births since 2014

Levi vs Elijah 153,351 births since 2014

Levi vs Benjamin 147,449 births since 2014

Levi vs Lucas 141,302 births since 2014

Compare to a different name →