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Shem Tov · Hebrew names

UnisexOrigin: HebrewIn Israel: steady

EliIn Hebrew: אלי · meaning, pronunciation and popularity in Israel

With vowel points: אֵלִיRomanization: éli

Eli (Hebrew: אלי) is a unisex name of Hebrew origin. 16,514 people born in Israel between 1949 and 2024 have it today, according to Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS). In 2024 it was given to 15 boys and ranked #549. Its peak year was 1976, with 372 babies.

People in Israel
16,514
born 1949–2024
Babies in 2024
15
rank #549
Peak year
1976
372 babies
USA, 2025
3,418
rank #104

Writing and saying Eli

In Hebrew letters the name is אלי, read right to left. Eli is the Latin spelling recorded by our review; families choose their own spelling in passports, so you may also meet other forms. Wiktionary romanizes it as "éli" (the accent marks the stressed syllable).

Meaning and origin

  • a diminutive of the male given name אֵלִיָּהוּ (eliyáhu), equivalent to English Eli

Quoted from English Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0), unchanged.

Eli by year: Israel and abroad

How many boys out of every 10,000 born each year have the name. For Israel it counts the people born that year who carry the name today (the CBS counts residents by year of birth, not birth registrations).

Eli: rate per 10,000, 1950–2025

per 10,000 babies of the same sex

Eli in English-speaking countries

Eli in each official list: latest year, count, rank and peak
Country / regionYearBabiesRankPeak
United States20253,418#1042012 (8,079)
United Kingdom2025421#1362017 (686)
England and Wales2025373#1372016 (619)
Scotland202522#1902019 (48)
Northern Ireland202526#902017 (49)
Ireland202523#2062019 (72)
British Columbia202326#1322013 (88)
Alberta202547#902015 (86)
Quebec2025126#452021 (201)
New South Wales202597#892011 (201)

Counts for boys. The Hebrew page for Eli has every year and the other spellings.

Related Israeli names

Spelling variants and names that look or sound close in Hebrew.

Questions about Eli

How do you write Eli in Hebrew?

Eli is written אלי in Hebrew (with vowel points: אֵלִי). Hebrew is read right to left. A dictionary romanization is "éli".

How many people in Israel are named Eli?

16,514 people born between 1949 and 2024 carry the name אלי: 2,544 women and 13,970 men. The count comes from the CBS table of current first names by year of birth; years with fewer than 5 people are not published.

Is Eli a boy's or a girl's name?

Both. In Israel 15% of the people named אלי are women and 85% are men, so we count it as unisex (our threshold: at least 20% of the less common sex).

What does the name Eli mean?

English Wiktionary describes it as: "a diminutive of the male given name אֵלִיָּהוּ (eliyáhu), equivalent to English Eli"

Is Eli used outside Israel?

The name Eli appears in the official baby name lists of English-speaking countries. In the United States 3,418 boys were given it in 2025 (#104), per the Social Security Administration. In the UK 421 in 2025 (ONS, NRS and NISRA combined).

Sources

Israel: Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), current first names of people born 1949–2024 by sex, population group and year of birth, processed 2026-09-27. CBS publications.

Abroad

Counts are copied as published. We only merged accented spellings (Zoë = Zoe) and computed ranks and rates. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence – British Columbia and the Open Government Licence – Alberta.