Yareli
A feminine name of Spanish origin meaning "small lake".
Name Census estimates that about 10,242 living Americans carry the first name Yareli. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Yareli today is around 15 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Yareli births was 2009 (591 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Yareli. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
Key insights
- • Yareli is a relatively new arrival in the SSA data. The average bearer is just 15 years old, meaning it gained most of its traction in the last two decades.
People living today
10K
~ 1 in 33,466 Americans
Peak year
2009
591 babies that year
Average age
15
years old
2024 SSA rank
#794
Tracked since 1985
Census
Yareli in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 7,304 people with the first name Yareli, which placed it at #3,036 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#3,036
National first-name rank
People counted
7.3K
7,304 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
2.4
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
Hispanic or Latino
98.4% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Yareli
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Yareli is Hispanic at 98.4%. The next largest groups are White (1.0%) and Black (0.2%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Yareli described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Yareli at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- Hispanic or Latino98.4% · 7,189
- White1.0% · 75
- Black or African American0.2% · 13
- Asian and Pacific Islander0.2% · 12
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.1% · 8
- Two or more races0.1% · 7
Popularity
Yareli: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Yareli from the 1980s through to the 2020s, spanning 5 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2010s, with 4,195 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2010s peak, Yareli remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Yareli by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Yareli during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Yarelis live
The SSA's state-level files cover 36 states and territories. California, Texas, Illinois recorded the most babies named Yareli, while Kentucky, Idaho, Louisiana recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 254 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Yareli
The name Yareli is of Purépecha origin, an indigenous people from the state of Michoacán in western Mexico. It is believed to have emerged sometime in the 16th century during the Spanish conquest of the region. The name is derived from the Purépecha words "yarekua" meaning "to grow" and "irekua" meaning "a flower".
In Purépecha culture, the name was traditionally given to girls who were born during the rainy season or in the spring, symbolizing the growth and blossoming of new life. It was considered a name of good fortune and was often bestowed upon daughters in the hope that they would grow to be as beautiful and resilient as the region's vibrant flora.
The earliest recorded use of the name Yareli can be found in colonial-era baptismal records from the region of Michoacán, dating back to the late 16th and early 17th centuries. One of the earliest known individuals to bear the name was Yareli Huanitzin, a Purépecha woman who lived in the early 17th century and was renowned for her skill in traditional textile weaving.
Throughout the centuries, the name Yareli has been carried by several notable figures, including Yareli Arizmendi (1909-1984), a celebrated Mexican novelist and poet who wrote extensively about the experiences of indigenous women in her home state of Michoacán. Another prominent bearer of the name was Yareli Cuauhtémoc (1920-2002), a Purépecha activist who dedicated her life to preserving the language and cultural traditions of her people.
In the field of art, Yareli Herrera (1932-2018) was a renowned Purépecha painter and sculptor, whose works often depicted scenes from indigenous mythology and daily life. Her contemporaries included Yareli López Velázquez (1935-2010), a groundbreaking Purépecha architect who designed several notable buildings in the region, incorporating elements of traditional Purépecha design and construction techniques.
One of the most recent notable figures to bear the name is Yareli Arizmendi Rodríguez (born 1983), a Purépecha singer and musician who has helped to revive and popularize traditional Purépecha music, particularly the use of the traditional stringed instrument known as the charapen.
People
Yareli + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Yareli as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with Y
Other first names starting with Y with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Yareli: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Yareli?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 10,242 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Yareli going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 33,466 US residents.
Is Yareli a common name?
We classify Yareli as "Uncommon". It ranks above 97.7% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 10,357 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Yareli most popular?
The single biggest year for Yareli was 2009, when 591 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Yareli is about 15 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Yareli in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 7,304 people with the name Yareli, or 2.42 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #3,036 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Yareli in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Yareli?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Yareli appears almost entirely female. Of the 7,307 people counted with this name, 99.5% were female and only a very small share were male. The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Yareli?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Yareli is Hispanic at 98.4%. The next largest groups are White (1.0%) and Black (0.2%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Yareli most often in the Census?
Hispanic is the largest reported group for people named Yareli in the 2020 Census, accounting for 98.4% (7,189 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Yareli in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Yareli a female name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Yareli in the SSA data are female. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Is Yareli still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Yareli in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Yareli can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.
How many people have the name Yareli?
HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site, answers that with the living-bearer count in one glance.