Entry № 6276 · Sanskrit origin

Maitreyi Maitreyi — Meaning, Origin & Baby Name Popularity

/ MAI-tray-ee /
Gender
Girl
Origin
Sanskrit
Meaning
"Friendly (Upanishadic philosopher)"
Syllables
2
First recorded
Ancient (Sanskrit)

A name that means "friendly (upanishadic philosopher)".

Maitreyi (मैत्रेयी) is from the Sanskrit maitrī (friendliness, loving-kindness). Maitreyi (c. 8th c. BCE) was the Vedic philosopher and wife of the sage Yajnavalkya — when he proposed to renounce the world and divide his wealth between her and his other wife, she famously asked: "Will this make me immortal?" — initiating one of the greatest philosophical dialogues in the Upanishads.

Featured in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad.

Friendly. The Upanishadic philosopher who asked: 'Will this wealth make me immortal?'

The name in its native script.

मैत्रेयी
Transliteration
Maitreyī
Pronunciation
/ ˈmaɪ.treɪ.i /
Root
Grammatical form

Where Maitreyi stands.

Maitreyi does not currently appear in the US Social Security Administration's top 1,000 girls' names, so we don't publish a US rank or birth count for it. That says nothing about the name's standing elsewhere in the world — only that it sits outside the ranked US data we rely on.

Maitreyis before her.

Real people
Maitreyi
Upanishadic philosopher.
c. 8th c. BCE
In fiction
Maitreyi
Featured in Mircea Eliade's Bengal Nights.
1933

Names connected to Maitreyi.

The number behind Maitreyi.

1

The Leader

In Pythagorean numerology the letters of Maitreyi reduce to 1, The Leader. This is a traditional interpretive system, not a factual claim about the name.