Jelani

Where Jelani comes from

Jelani hasn't made it into the dictionaries we draw on, and nobody well known enough for an encyclopedia has carried it yet — so for now its story is the one the SSA record tells. Names that spell a familiar sound a new way often live here for a while before anyone writes them down.

  • Vowel-ended
Along the way
  1. 1973
    First appearance
    #1,400 among boys, 36 babies — the first year at least five got the name.
  2. 1977
    Jelani McCoy born
    American basketball player
  3. 1997
    Jelani Reshaun Sumiyoshi born
    Japanese association football player
  4. 1998
    Peak, #931
    151 babies named Jelani — more than any year before or since.
  5. 2014
    The fade
    The first year with half the peak's births — down to #2,044.
  6. 2025
    Mostly girls from here
    Until now more boys than girls got the name; from this year it's the other way round, and has stayed that way.
In the dictionary

No dictionary entry for this spelling — which is its own kind of rare.

Namesakes
  • Jelani Reshaun Sumiyoshi · Japanese association football player, born 1997
  • Jelani McCoy · American basketball player, born 1977
  • Jelani Smith · association football player, born 1991
  • Jelani Alladin · American actor, born 1992
  • Jelani Peters · Canadian soccer player, born 1993

Sources: the origin note and dictionary entry are quoted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0); the namesakes come from Wikidata (CC0); the milestones are worked out from the SSA record.