Mithali is from the Sanskrit maitrī (मैत्री) — "friendship, loving-kindness" — also a central concept in Buddhist philosophy (the Maitri practice, the Bodhisattva of loving-kindness). Mithali Raj (born 1982) — Indian cricketer; captain of the Indian women's cricket team across three formats (Tests, ODIs, T20Is) for 17 years. The all-time leading run-scorer in women's international cricket — over 10,868 runs across all formats; first cricketer (male or female) to score 7,000+ runs in Women's ODIs. First Indian cricketer (male or female) to be ICC Women's Test Player of the Year and to captain her side in six ICC Cricket World Cup tournaments. Padma Shri (2015); Padma Bhushan (2021); Khel Ratna (2003). First Indian woman to score a double century in Test cricket (214 not out, 2002 vs England). Retired in 2022. *The biopic Shabaash Mithu (2022) starred Taapsee Pannu. In Buddhism, the Maitrī Sutta is a foundational text on loving-kindness meditation*.
Featured throughout 2000s-2020s women's cricket history.
Mithali 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.
In Pythagorean numerology the letters of Mithali reduce to 9, The Giver. This is a traditional interpretive system, not a factual claim about the name.