Demi: Meaning of Baby Name Demi

About the Name Demi

Demi has multiple proposed origins. The most credible Greek line connects Demi to a short form of Demetria (the Greek goddess of grain and harvest, see separate entry on Demetria) or to the Greek dēmí ("of the people"). A separate French line connects Demi to the French word for "half." A third proposed line connects Demi to a creative spelling of various longer names beginning with Dem-.

The name's overwhelming modern American cultural anchor is American actress Demi Moore (Demetria Gene Guynes, born 1962, the iconic American actress whose career through Ghost 1990, A Few Good Men 1992, and G.I. Jane 1997 made her one of the foundational late-20th and early-21st-century American screen presences). Demi Moore was, at one point in the 1990s, the highest-paid actress in Hollywood.

Other notable bearers include American singer Demi Lovato (born 1992, the iconic American singer-actress whose career through Disney Channel's Camp Rock 2008 and her Grammy-nominated music made her one of the foundational figures of contemporary American teen culture). Demi's American climb is recent: the name climbed from outside the US top 1000 in 2000 to the US top 300 girls' rank by 2014 and the top 300 since. The name's appeal sits in three contemporary American naming preferences: the layered Greek-French-American etymological flexibility, the strong Demi Moore and Demi Lovato cultural anchors, and the compact two-syllable structure. The name reads as distinctly contemporary American. Common nicknames are scarce since the name is already short — Dem (the dominant short form, casual and warm) and the rare Demmie each occasionally appear; the longer formal Demetria, Demetra, or Demarie are sometimes used as Demi's official-document version. International forms include Demetria (Greek original), Démétra (French), and the broader Demetria/Demeter family.

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

Quick Facts About Demi

5,642

English baby names in our dictionary

2,251

English female names

86

4-letter D-names in our dictionary

491

D-female names total

2009–2025

years of US SSA records (17 total)

10,190

total US births named Demi (all years)

US Popularity History (2009–2025)

↘️ Falling: Demi dropped 42 places in the US girls ranking over the last 5 years (#339 in 2020 → #381 in 2025).

Annual US births named Demi by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2020 with 913 girls named Demi (girl rank #339 that year).

Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #381 for girls (804 US births). That's 42 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.

Where in the US Is Demi 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 Demi the strongest states are Louisiana, District of Columbia, Maryland.

Strongest girls-name states

#	State	Avg rank	Births
1	Louisiana	#49	587
2	District of Columbia	#104	77
3	Maryland	#216	245
4	Missouri	#270	216
5	Mississippi	#277	105
6	West Virginia	#291	18
7	Illinois	#325	324
8	Georgia	#369	286
9	Michigan	#382	222
10	Florida	#384	457

Weakest girls-name states

#	State	Avg rank	Births
1	Washington	#800	64
2	Colorado	#737	44
3	Massachusetts	#698	43
4	Wisconsin	#666	48
5	Minnesota	#601	55
6	Arizona	#569	112
7	Virginia	#557	136
8	California	#529	622
9	New York	#528	302
10	Iowa	#503	33

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

Famous People Named Demi

1 notable figure from history and culture who share the name Demi.

Demi Moore — Movie Actress (1962)

Browse more famous Demis and similar first names →

Looking for names like Demi?

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.

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Compare Demi to Other Popular Names

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

Demi vs Olivia 210,124 births since 2014

Demi vs Emma 202,477 births since 2014

Demi vs Sophia 169,709 births since 2014

Demi vs Isabella 158,431 births since 2014

Demi vs Ava 157,356 births since 2014

Demi vs Charlotte 151,872 births since 2014

Demi vs Mia 149,779 births since 2014

Demi vs Amelia 142,728 births since 2014

Compare to a different name →