1,071 names in this catalogue end in -i, and they average 45 registrations each. Both figures are low. This is a real ending with real names behind it and it is also the one fewest animals carry, which is exactly the reason to look at it.
The mouth cannot tell it from -y
Loki, Kiki, Naomi, Bambi. Said aloud, an -i ending is the lifting sound English usually spells -y. 830 of the slice has two syllables, the same shape that ending forces. The difference is entirely on paper — and on paper is where the crowding is.
That is the trade this ending offers and almost nothing else does: a familiar sound with an unfamiliar spelling, at a fraction of the registrations the familiar spelling carries.
Almost entirely a dog ending
1,069 of them are recorded on dogs and 268 on cats. That gap is mostly an artefact of which registers are large rather than a preference anybody expressed, but the practical effect stands: if you have a dog, this ending is not competing with much.
It carries no gender reading at all
358 measure female against 285 male. After -o and -a, which each run about ten to one the other way, an ending that means nothing at all is almost restful.
Are names ending in -i unusual?
Among the least used endings here: 1,071 names averaging 45 registrations each. The sound is common, the spelling is not.
Is -i a male or female ending?
Neither, on this evidence — 358 female against 285 male. It is one of the few endings that carries no reading.
Does -i sound different from -y?
Not to the ear. 830 of these are two syllables ending on the same lifting vowel; what differs is the spelling and how many animals share it.
Every count on this site is a tally of real registrations: pet licences and shelter intakes published as open data by New York, Seattle, Austin, Montgomery County, Cambridge, Zurich, Basel and four Australian councils. Popularity here is the average share a name holds across those registers, so a name common in a small city is not buried by one common in a large one. Five of the eleven registers are North American and they supply 86% of the records, so read the ordering as naming in those places rather than worldwide. Browse the whole catalogue or read how the data is put together.