Lil is for long LITTLE, most of those rappers who called themselves Lil do so when they started rapping at a very young age, when they turned adults it becomes very hard to change their names because the Lil name has been known as their stage names.

The word lil, a shortening of little, first appeared in the 1800s. "It's in the form of a child's nursery rhyme — lil boy bear, lil gal bear," ABC language researcher (and rap fan) Tiger Webb said. "Some of those, honestly, you could transpose to hip hop names right now."

Rappers ended up using this simple nickname often and it's been shortened to "Lil" because that's how it sounds phonetically in many accents/dialects especially in the black communities, or what some call "ebonics".

The first recorded rapper name featuring the coveted 'lil' is said to be Lil Rodney Cee of Funky 4+1 who first took to the hip-hop scene in 1979.