Mali
surname · Latin script
Meaning: Bambara/Malinke: possibly "rhinoceros" or "people"; Swahili: "wealth, riches"; Thai: female name meaning "jasmine flower"
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/mɑːli/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Mali is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Brazil than in any other country.
- ARArgentina1 in 4.3Kas Melo(measured from records)
- INIndia1 in 6.1Kas Mal
- NGNigeria≈1 in 20Kas Mala
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than Mali itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- Brazil (measured from records)
- #849 (measured from records)
- 6 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 309 (measured from records)
- 1 in 1.5K (inferred from the name graph)
1,522,803 named Melo
of 19M surnames
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Nepal
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled Mala in BR Brazil, NP Nepal, NG Nigeria and Mola in AR Argentina, UY Uruguay.
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.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
Bambara/Malinke: possibly "rhinoceros" or "people"; Swahili: "wealth, riches"; Thai: female name meaning "jasmine flower"
Sources 1
- African Names
Attested across 15 languages in the etymology graph.
Often considered alongside
Names that people choosing a name often weigh against Mali, most often first. They share a style rather than an origin.
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.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Mali counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BR Brazil | — | 1,522,803as Melo | 1 in 139 | 1.5M | Mala | 31 |
| IN India | #141 | 218,731as Mal | 1 in 6.1K | 219K | Mali | 202 |
| NP Nepal | — | 19,605 | 1 in 1.5K | 20K | Mala | 16 |
| AR Argentina | — | 10,683as Melo | 1 in 4.3K | 11K | Mola | 39 |
| NG Nigeria | — | ≈11,000 est. | ≈1 in 20K | listed | Mala | 30 |
| UY Uruguay | — | 6,842as Melo | 1 in 495 | 6.8K | Mola | 11 |
| CZ Czechia | — | 6,765as Malá | 1 in 1.6K | 6.8K | — | 2 |
| EC Ecuador | — | 4,471as Melo | 1 in 3.8K | 4.5K | — | 12 |
1,522,803 people counted by IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname), counting the spelling melo. Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname); Instate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls; NPHC 2021 — Population by caste/ethnicity group (national), surname-shaped categories only; RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national); INE Uruguay — Apellidos más frecuentes 1902–2024 (Tableau Public); MVČR — living population register 2017; INEC — civil registry names. Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Other recorded senses(measured from records)
Mali is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In Welsh, Colloquial Welsh form of Mary; earliest cite: Broniarth 1429.
as a nameWelsh Surnames
Tunisie, Rio de Janeiro; from Maali
as a nameDicionario Sefaradi De SobrenomesDictionary Of Sephardic Surnames Inclusive Cristaos-Novos, Conversos, Marranos, Italianos,…
In English, republic, Africa
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
In English, Thai; a flower
as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
Flor Mandissa, Mandysa, Mandyssa
as a name25,000 nombres de bebé. La mejor guía para escoger el nombre adecuado
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.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Šćepan Malib. 1800MERuler of Montenegro
- Christian Friedrich Malib. 1832DEGerman painter and art professor (1832-1906)
- Siniša Malib. 1972RSFirst Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Serbia
- Andreja Malib. 1977SISlovenian biathlete
- Antara Malib. 1979INIndian actress
- Nada Malib. 1979SISlovenian canoeist
- Anais Malib. 1991FRfashion model
- Nikoloz Malib. 1999GEGeorgian association football player
- Sofia Malib. 2000USAmerican actress
- Joseph MaliILIsraeli historian
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).
How to address them(machine-generated)
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 85 sources across 43 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| IN India | Instate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls | — | 73K | #231 |
| NP Nepal | NPHC 2021 — Population by caste/ethnicity group (national), surname-shaped categories only | 2021 | 20K | #64 |
| AR Argentina | RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national) | — | 11 | — |
| CZ Czechia | MVČR — living population register 2017 | — | 6 | #109,220 |
Reference works 6
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Mali mean, and where does it come from?
- Bambara/Malinke: possibly "rhinoceros" or "people"; Swahili: "wealth, riches"; Thai: female name meaning "jasmine flower" Recorded by African Names.
- How common is the name Mali?
- In Nepal, the national register counted 19,605 people named Mali in 2021, about 1 in 1.5 thousand residents.
- How common is Mali compared with other names?
- In India, Mali is the 141st most common surname of 1,492,515 surnames recorded there.
- How do you pronounce Mali?
- A machine transcription gives /mɑːli/ (IPA) for Hindi.
- In which country does Mali have the most bearers?
- In Brazil, the national register counted about 1.5 million people named Melo, more than in any other country we hold.
- Where is Mali most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Mali is densest in Nepal — about 1 in 1.5 thousand people — even though Brazil holds more of our records for it.
What do you want to know about Mali?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/maliThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Mali” — the 141st most common surname in India. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.