Akili
surname · Latin script
Meaning, in Swahili: mind
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Akili is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Tanzania than in any other country.
- TZTanzania≈1 in 15K(inferred from the name graph)
- SYSyria≈1 in 28K
- 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). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- Tanzania (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 174 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 15K (inferred from the name graph)
≈3,800 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Tanzania, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
mind
Sources 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 We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.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 in the world(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.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| TZ Tanzania | ≈3,800 est. | ≈1 in 15K | — | Akili | 14 |
| SY Syria | ≈700 est. | ≈1 in 28K | — | Akili | 6 |
| KE Kenya | ≈180 est. | ≈1 in 292K | listed | Akili | 6 |
| NG Nigeria | ≈140 est. | ≈1 in 1.5M | listed | Akili | 5 |
| DZ Algeria | ≈130 est. | ≈1 in 325K | listed | — | — |
| IN India | 56 | 1 in 24M | 56 | — | 6 |
| NO Norway | 20 | 1 in 273K | 20 | — | 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 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.
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 27 sources across 23 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| IN India | Instate — India surnames by state (real counts) from electoral rolls | — | 89 | #24,631 |
| IN India | Instate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls | — | 56 | #41,439 |
| NO Norway | SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population) | — | 20 | #43,111 |
| DZ Algeria | Algerian names (Kaggle, MIT) | — | — | — |
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).
- In which country does Akili have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 3.8 thousand people named Akili in Tanzania, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled akili.
- 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?
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/akiliThe 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 2026-10-10.