girls:
977 births since 1949
#4739 (17th percentile)
boys:
2.3k births since 1948
#2637 (42nd percentile)
overall:
3.3k births since 1948
#4779 (38th percentile)
The name Desi is the #4,779 most popular name of all time in the U.S. on a gender-neutral basis, with a total of 3,264 recorded births since 1948. This represents the 38.2% percentile of name popularity (more popular than 38.2% of all names). For boys, it ranks #2,637 (42.5% percentile) for all time with 2,287 births since 1948. For girls, it ranks #4,739 (17.1% percentile) for all time with 977 births since 1949.
Desi first appeared in U.S. birth records in 1948 (1948 for boys and 1949 for girls). Birth data for Desi is available in 75 out of the 76 years between 1948 and 2023 (74 years for boys and 68 years for girls). The Social Security Administration only reports birth data for years in which the name was given to at least five children of the same gender.
The name Desi has been given predominantly to boys, with 70.1% of all recorded births being male. In 2023, 50.0% of babies named Desi were boys.
For boys, Desi reached its peak popularity in 1970, achieving the 9.4% percentile (ranked #605) with 36 births per million. The name was most common in 1972, with 39 births per million (ranked 9.1% percentile). Since reaching a low point around 2018, the popularity of this name for boys has been increasing. Currently, Desi ranks #885 for boys (2.9% percentile) with 17 births per million, which is 43.6% of its peak share of births.
For girls, Desi reached its peak popularity in 2022, achieving the 3.9% percentile (ranked #921) with 23 births per million. The name was most common in 2022, with 23 births per million (ranked 3.9% percentile). Since reaching a low point around 2003, the popularity of this name for girls has been increasing. Currently, Desi ranks #921 for girls (2.7% percentile) with 18 births per million, which is 75.7% of its peak share of births.
This chart shows the total number of births per million babies in each year for the name "Desi".
These names exclude other spelling variations of Dessie. View all variations of Dessie.
These similar-looking names have spellings that are closest to the spelling of "Desi", in the sense that there are the fewest number of letter differences between the two spellings. This list excludes the 2 other name spellings that we've determined are also variations of "Dessie" based on shared pronunciations. Click here for more details on names that are pronounced like Dessie..
Our model has identified 3 different pronunciations for the name Desi. Click the play button under each pronunciation to hear it spoken aloud.
Our model is 55.8% confident that Desi is pronounced as DEH-see, which has 2 syllables. The next most likely pronunciation is DEH-zee, at 27.9% confidence, with 2 syllables.
If none of the pronunciations above sound right to you, could you please check whether any of these related pronunciations should be applied to the name Desi? These are pronunciations that other similar names use, but which are not currently associated with Desi. If you think any of these are valid pronunciations for Desi, please vote using the thumbs up button.
Our confidence scores estimate the likelihood that a particular pronunciation is the most correct for a given name spelling. These scores are derived from pronunciation dictionaries, manual verification, your feedback, and a fine-tuned large language model trained to generate name pronunciations.
For any given spelling, confidence scores across all identified pronunciations sum to 100%. However, these scores don't account for the possibility of valid pronunciations that our model hasn't identified.
The raw pronunciations shown (like D EH1 S IY0) use the ARPAbet phoneme system, a standardized way to represent English speech sounds. Each symbol represents a distinct sound in American English. Visit the ARPAbet Wikipedia page to learn more about these phonetic symbols.
Pronunciation audio is generated by an open source text to speech model that has been customized to adhere to pronunciations provided in ARPAbet format, but sometimes pronunciations that differ subtly will sound identical, particularly if the only difference is the level of emphasis on a syllable or a single vowel sound.
© 2025 NamePlay.org
Made with ❤️ by Aaron J Becker