Lili

Locally spelled Lee in US United States, GB United Kingdom, MY Malaysia, Leyla in TR Türkiye, AZ Azerbaijan, Li in CN China, TW Taiwan and Leila in GE Georgia.

Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.

• Spanish:/lili/○(machine-generated) model-generated
• Indonesian:/lˈili/○(machine-generated) model-generated

Readings marked model-generated were transcribed by a model; the others are quoted from the dictionary named.

Attested across 16 languages in the etymology graph.

Lili is one spelling over 6 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 2 of them. Each row is what a source recorded for that language, beside the share of this name’s records the language holds. No single row is the name’s meaning.

• Hungarian32%

  a female given name, equivalent to English Lilly

  as a word·kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

• Spanish28%

  No dictionary in our sources glosses Lili in Spanish.

• English14%

  No dictionary in our sources glosses Lili in English.

• French12%

  Short form of names from Latin lilium ‘lily’; associated with purity.

  as a name·Dictionnaire généalogique des prénoms

• Hindi11%

  No dictionary in our sources glosses Lili in Hindi.

• Indonesian7.6%

  No dictionary in our sources glosses Lili in Indonesian.

The share is ours — how much of this name’s records each language holds. The sense beside it is the source’s, quoted and credited, including where it names a gender. We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.

Names that people choosing a name often weigh against Lili, most often first. They share a style rather than an origin.

• Tali
• Ana
• Meghan
• Alys
• Bess

From the names suggested together in public name-advice forums, in English. A list of what people consider, not a measure of how common any name is.

Lili is also recorded as 8 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

• French given name4 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in France, United States, Belgium, Canada

  Also written Li-Li, Lîlî

• Hindi given name28 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in India, United States, Bangladesh, United Kingdom

  Languages: Hindi, Bangla, Urdu

  Also written Lilly, Lily, লিলি, Lillie, Lilley

• Indonesian given name6 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in Indonesia, Malaysia, India, United States

  Languages: Indonesian, Malay

  Also written Li-Li, 'Lili, Lili'

• a separate name7 spellings in the group

  Also written Li-Li, Lìlǐ, Lilī, Lilí, Lil̲i

• Romanian given name2 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in Italy, Romania, Spain, United States

  Also written Lîlî

• Japanese given name2 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in Japan, India, United States, China

  Also written Li-Li

• Albanian given name4 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in Albania, United States, Italy, India

  Also written Lílï, Lîlï, Lilí

• a separate name2 spellings in the group

  Also written Lilí

54 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Lili is also recorded in 4 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

• Pet form of exisaBeTu. Also: Lilli.

  as a name·A concise dictionary of first names

• German: pet form, originally a reduplicated nursery form, of ELISABETH . This form is associated in particular with the Second World War popular song Lili Marlene . Variant: Lilli .

  as a word

• In Hawaiian, jealous; highly sensitive to criticism; jealousy; anger and mental anguish felt if one’s loved ones are criticized

  as a word·Austronesian Comparative Dictionary (ACD), CLDF v2.0

• In Tongan, to boil (of the sea). to be turbulent, violently rough; to be very angry, to boil with rage, to be furious

  as a word·Austronesian Comparative Dictionary (ACD), CLDF v2.0

Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.

• Lili Elbeb. 1882DKDanish painter and transgender woman (1882–1931)
• Liliana Cavanib. 1933ITnot in their usual nameItalian film director and screenwriter
• Lili Taylorb. 1967USAmerican actress

The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).

A formal English salutation is built on the surname, so it needs a full name — on its own, a first name only supports the informal form.

100 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 48 countries.

Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.

Is Lili a male or female name?

Lili is used for both men and women, depending on the country. National registers that list names by sex disagree: Hungary (Nyilvántartó, 2025): listed as female; United States (Census Bureau, 2020): listed as female; France (INSEE, 2024): listed as female; Albania (INSTAT Albania): listed under both sexes. We don't publish a percentage split.

What are other forms of the name Lili?

In the etymology graph, Elizabeth, Lisa and Julie are forms of the same name in other languages; it is recorded as a short form of Élisabeth.

Where does the name Lili come from?

Short form of names from Latin lilium ‘lily’; associated with purity. Recorded by Dictionnaire généalogique des prénoms.

Which countries have the most people named Lili?

Mondonomo estimates about 14 million people named Li in China, more than in any other country we hold. After it come Malaysia, Türkiye, United States and United Kingdom; the country table on this page ranks them.

Where is Lili most common?

Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Lili is densest in Hungary — about 1 in 468 people — even though China holds more of our records for it.

How do you pronounce Lili?

It depends on the language: in Spanish /lili/; in Indonesian /lˈili/. Transcriptions are machine-generated except where a dictionary is named.

What does the name Lili mean?

In Hungarian, a female given name, equivalent to English Lilly

How common is the name Lili?

In Hungary, the national register counted 20,872 people named Lili in 2025, about 1 in 468 residents.

How common is Lili compared with other names?

In Azerbaijan, Lili is the 2nd most common given name of 28,848 given names recorded there.