Akili

surname · Latin script

Meaning, in Swahili: mind

(measured from records)Officially recorded in 23 countries

/acili/(machine-generated) Turkish · model-generated

Say it inExplore pronunciation →

Akili is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Tanzania than in any other country.

  • TZTanzania≈1 in 15Kfew records(inferred from the name graph)
  • DZAlgeria≈1 in 210K
  • NONorway1 in 273K

carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Countries with no figure are shown too: flat where a national register lists the name without counting it, hatched where only our records hold it. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.

Tanzania (inferred from the name graph)

≈4,500 people, est.

Record sources
174 (measured from records)

corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling

strongest: highest-authority source

≈1 in 15K (inferred from the name graph)

Tanzania, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Meaning & origin

(measured from records)

mind

Cited for this meaning 1

  • kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.

How Akili is read

(measured from records)

Akili is one spelling over 5 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.

  • French20%

    No dictionary in our sources glosses Akili in French.

  • English20%

    No dictionary in our sources glosses Akili in English.

  • Turkish16%

    No dictionary in our sources glosses Akili in Turkish.

  • Arabic15%

    intelligent, wise

    as a nameAfrican Muslim Names

  • Swahili11%

    mind

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

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 We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.

Where the surname Akili is found

(measured from records)

Akili 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.

Where Akili is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
TZ Tanzania≈4,500 est.≈1 in 15K—Akili14
SY Syria≈790 est.≈1 in 31K—Akili6
DZ Algeria≈230 est.≈1 in 206Klisted——
KE Kenya≈200 est.≈1 in 287KlistedAkili6
NG Nigeria≈130 est.≈1 in 1.8MlistedAkili5
IN India561 in 24M56—6
NO Norway201 in 273K20—2

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: Instate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls; SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population); the dz-kaggle-names register. 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 names spelled this way

(inferred from the name graph)

Akili is also recorded as 2 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Arabic surname5 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Syria, Morocco, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia

    Also written Âkîlì, Ākîĺî, Àkílí, Akīlī

  • Spanish surname3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Philippines, Colombia, Venezuela

    Languages: Spanish, Portuguese

    Also written Àkili

40 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.

Other recorded senses

(measured from records)

Akili 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.

  • Wisdom

    as a nameThe book of African names

  • Competent, capable.

    as a nameThe African book of names

  • intelligence, mind

    as a nameWhats in a name = Unaitwaje a Swahili book of names

  • mind, intelligence

    as a nameWhats in a name = Unaitwaje a Swahili book of names

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.

How to address them

(machine-generated)
FormalMonsieur,Dear Mr Akili, (English)
InformalBonjour Akili,Hi Akili, (English)

Evidence

(measured from records)

27 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 23 countries.

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

Frequently asked questions

What does the name Akili mean, and where does it come from?
mind Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
How do you pronounce Akili?
It depends on the language: in Turkish /acili/; in Swahili /akili/. Transcriptions are machine-generated except where a dictionary is named.
Which countries have the most people with the surname Akili?
Mondonomo estimates about 4.5 thousand people named Akili in Tanzania, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled akili. After it come Syria, Algeria, Kenya and Nigeria; the country table on this page ranks them.
How common is the name Akili?
In India, the national register counted 56 people named Akili, about 1 in 24 million residents.

What do you want to know about Akili?

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Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/akili

The 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, “Akili”. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.

See how Akili parses inside a full name →