Milani
Of Persian origin meaning "from Milan", a city in northern Italy.
Name Census estimates that about 10,512 living Americans carry the first name Milani. It sits at #278 in the overall ranking, outside the top 50 but still well-represented. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Milani today is around 7 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Milani births was 2022 (1,298 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Milani. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
For a British comparison, Name Census UK has a UK baby-name profile for Milani with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Milani is a relatively new arrival in the SSA data. The average bearer is just 7 years old, meaning it gained most of its traction in the last two decades.
People living today
11K
~ 1 in 32,606 Americans
Peak year
2022
1,298 babies that year
Average age
7
years old
2024 SSA rank
#278
Tracked since 1991
Census
Milani in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 3,777 people with the first name Milani, which placed it at #4,786 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#4,786
National first-name rank
People counted
3.8K
3,777 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
1.3
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
Hispanic or Latino
40.9% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Milani
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Milani is Hispanic at 40.9%. The next largest groups are Black (34.7%) and Two or More Races (10.2%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Milani described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Milani at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- Hispanic or Latino40.9% · 1,545
- Black or African American34.7% · 1,309
- Two or more races10.2% · 387
- White9.0% · 339
- Asian and Pacific Islander4.5% · 169
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.7% · 28
Gender
Gender distribution for Milani
Out of the 10,585 babies given the name Milani since 1880, 99.9% were registered as female. The name sits firmly on the female side of the spectrum, with only a handful of male registrations across the entire dataset.
Milani as a male name
- Ranked #13,521 in 2024
- 5 male births in 2024
- Peak: 2021 (5 births)
Milani as a female name
- Ranked #278 in 2024
- 1,137 female births in 2024
- Peak: 2022 (1,298 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Milani appears almost entirely female. Of the 3,773 people counted with this name, 99.6% were female and only a very small share were male.
Popularity
Milani: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Milani from the 1990s through to the 2020s, spanning 4 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2020s, with 5,755 total registrations. The name continues to be given at rates close to its all-time high, suggesting it has not yet fallen out of fashion.
Babies born per year
Decades
Milani by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Milani during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Milanis live
The SSA's state-level files cover 40 states and territories. California, Texas, Florida recorded the most babies named Milani, while New Hampshire, Nebraska, District of Columbia recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 241 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Milani
The name Milani is of ancient Persian origin, dating back to the Achaemenid Empire, which ruled over the territories of modern-day Iran, Turkey, and parts of Central Asia from 550 BC to 330 BC. The name is derived from the Old Persian word "mitra," which means "friend" or "covenant."
Milani was a popular name among the Persian nobility and aristocracy during the Achaemenid and Sassanid eras. One of the earliest recorded references to the name can be found in the Behistun Inscription, a multi-lingual inscription carved on the sacred rock face in modern-day Kermanshah Province, Iran, around 520 BC. The inscription mentions a Persian nobleman named Milani, who served as a high-ranking official in the court of King Darius the Great.
In ancient Persian literature, the name Milani appears in several epic poems and mythological tales. One notable example is the Shahnameh, the national epic of Greater Iran, written by the renowned poet Ferdowsi in the late 10th century AD. The epic includes a character named Milani, who is portrayed as a brave and loyal warrior in the service of the legendary Persian hero, Rustam.
Throughout history, several notable individuals have borne the name Milani. One of the earliest recorded was Milani ibn Khalid (c. 680 - 738 AD), a prominent Arab general and governor during the Umayyad Caliphate. He played a significant role in the Muslim conquest of Central Asia and the expansion of the Umayyad Empire.
Another famous bearer of the name was Milani al-Hakim (c. 985 - 1021 AD), a renowned Arab philosopher, mathematician, and astronomer from Basra, Iraq. He made significant contributions to the fields of logic, geometry, and optics, and his works were widely studied and translated throughout the medieval Islamic world.
In the 13th century, Milani Jalaluddin Rumi (1207 - 1273 AD), a Persian poet, Islamic scholar, and Sufi mystic, became one of the most celebrated figures in the history of Persian literature and Sufism. His poetic masterpiece, the Masnavi, is widely regarded as one of the greatest works of Persian literature and a seminal text in the Sufi tradition.
During the Renaissance period, Milani Ghiyas al-Din al-Rashidi (c. 1435 - 1498 AD), a Persian astronomer and mathematician, made significant contributions to the development of astronomical instruments and the advancement of observational astronomy. He served as the chief astronomer at the renowned Samarkand Observatory, which was established by the Timurid ruler, Ulugh Beg.
In more recent times, Milani Mehdi Bazargan (1907 - 1995) was a prominent Iranian scholar, academic, and politician who served as the first Prime Minister of the Islamic Republic of Iran after the Iranian Revolution in 1979.
People
Milani + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Milani as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with M
Other first names starting with M with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Milani: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Milani?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 10,512 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Milani going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 32,606 US residents.
Is Milani a common name?
We classify Milani as "Uncommon". It ranks above 97.8% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 10,585 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Milani most popular?
The single biggest year for Milani was 2022, when 1,298 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Milani is about 7 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Milani in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 3,777 people with the name Milani, or 1.25 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #4,786 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Milani in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Milani?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Milani appears almost entirely female. Of the 3,773 people counted with this name, 99.6% were female and only a very small share were male. The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Milani?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Milani is Hispanic at 40.9%. The next largest groups are Black (34.7%) and Two or More Races (10.2%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Milani most often in the Census?
Hispanic is the largest reported group for people named Milani in the 2020 Census, accounting for 40.9% (1,545 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Milani in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Milani a female name?
Yes, 99.9% of people registered as Milani in the SSA data are female. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Is Milani still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Milani in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Milani can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.
How many people share the name Milani?
HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site, answers that with the living-bearer count in one glance.