Naphtali
given name · Latin script
Meaning: A Hebrew name meaning 'my struggle' or 'wrestling', symbolizing perseverance and spiritual victory
Used for both men and women· registers list it under both sexes; no split published
(measured from records)Officially recorded in 9 countries
/napθaʎi/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Naphtali is a given name used for both men and women, written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Afghanistan than in any other country.
- ILIsrael≈1 in 2.4Kas נפתלי(inferred from the name graph)
- RORomania≈1 in 6Kas נפתלי
- LBLebanon≈1 in 11Kas נפתלי
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 Naphtali 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.
- Afghanistan (inferred from the name graph)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Record sources
- 127 (measured from records)
- 1 in 94K (inferred from the name graph)
≈4,000 named נפתלי, est.
recorded for this name
corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling
strongest: highest-authority source
Guyana
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts
(measured from records)Locally spelled נפתלי in IL Israel, RO Romania, LB Lebanon and 2 more and Naftali in US United States, AF Afghanistan.
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)A Hebrew name meaning 'my struggle' or 'wrestling', symbolizing perseverance and spiritual victory.
Cited for this meaning 1
- Biblical Names Compiled Database
Attested across 4 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world
(measured from records)Naphtali 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AF Afghanistan | — | ≈4,000 est. | ≈1 in 9.1K | — | Naftali | 3 |
| IL Israel | #278 | ≈3,600 est. | ≈1 in 2.4K | 2.3K | נפתלי | 65 |
| RO Romania | — | ≈3,600 est. | ≈1 in 6K | — | נפתלי | 6 |
| US United States | — | 1,483as Naftali | 1 in 224K | 1.4K | Naftali | 127 |
| HU Hungary | — | ≈690 est. | ≈1 in 14K | — | נפתלי | 3 |
| LB Lebanon | — | ≈510 est. | ≈1 in 11K | — | נפתלי | 3 |
| QA Qatar | — | ≈330 est. | ≈1 in 7.3K | — | נפתלי | 1 |
| GY Guyana | — | 8 | 1 in 94K | 8 | — | — |
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: CBS Israel — Family names in Israel, 2017 ("שמות משפחה בישראל 2017"); Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; Guyana — Official List of Electors July 2025. 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)Naphtali 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.
Naphtali represents the concept of prevailing through struggle or wrestling in prayer, as indicated by Rachel's declaration at his birth.
as a nameBiblical Names Compiled Database
Name, of the son of the Jakobs, as Naphtali Herz Mendels- heim.
as a nameThe Origin of Jewish Family Names: Morphology and History
In German, from the biblical name Naphtali, associated with the deer symbol.
as a nameDeutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
In English, Sixth son of Jacob, by his wife's handmaid Bilhah.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In English, one of the twelve tribes of Israel
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper 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.
Notable people with this name
(measured from records)- Naphtali Cohenb. 1649UARussian Orthodox rabbi
- Naphtali Hirz Wesselyb. 1725DEGerman scholar
- Zwi Herman Ehrlichb. 1815DEnot in their usual nameGerman-Jewish hazzan, teacher and composer (1815–1879)
- Hartwig Hirschfeldb. 1854PLnot in their usual namePrussian-born British Orientalist and educator (1854–1934)
- Naphtali Lewisb. 1911USAmerican papyrologist and egyptologist (1911-2005)
- Naftali Landsbergb. 1920ILpainter (1920-2000)
- Naftali Golombb. 1930ILPainter and sculptor
- Alexis Blumb. 1942FRnot in their usual nameFrench rabbi
- Anatoly Rakuzinb. 1948RUnot in their usual nameRussian painter (born 1948)
- Naftali Bennettb. 1972ILPrime Minister of Israel from 2021 to 2022
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)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.
Evidence
(measured from records)15 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 9 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, voter-file supplement (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 2
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
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
- How do you pronounce Naphtali?
- A machine transcription gives /napθaʎi/ (IPA) for English.
- What does the name Naphtali mean, and where does it come from?
- A Hebrew name meaning 'my struggle' or 'wrestling', symbolizing perseverance and spiritual victory. Recorded by Biblical Names Compiled Database.
- What are other forms of the name Naphtali?
- In the etymology graph, Naftali is a form of the same name in other languages.
- Is Naphtali a male or female name?
- Naphtali is used for both men and women. National registers that list it by sex count it under both: United States (Census Bureau, 2020). We don't publish a percentage split.
- In which country does Naphtali have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 4.0 thousand people named נפתלי in Afghanistan, more than in any other country we hold.
- Where is Naphtali most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Naphtali is densest in Guyana — about 1 in 94 thousand people — even though Afghanistan holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Naphtali?
- In Guyana, the national register counted 8 people named Naphtali in 2025, about 1 in 94 thousand residents.
- How common is Naphtali compared with other names?
- In Israel, Naphtali is the 278th most common given name of 107,303 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Naphtali?
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/naphtaliThe 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, “Naphtali” — the 278th most common given name in Israel. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.