Ngram shows li'l beating out lil' and li'l' since before 1900. Lil 是little的简称。最早是黑人直接的亲密称呼，就跟你朋友叫你小李小张小王一样。 因为hiphop最早来自黑人街区， 所以最早很多rapper就保留了自己lil xxx的名字。就成了一. (note that you must press search lots of books after clicking on the link.) and since lil is a very popular name (both as.
