Medha
Medha was given to 17 girls in 2025, #6,738 among girls’ names; 933 Americans have been recorded with it since 1993 (Social Security Administration, published May 2026).
Girls and boys together; gaps are years SSA did not record (fewer than 5 births).
Births of Medha by year: SSA national baby-name file, 1880-2025, published May 8, 2026. SSA’s notes on the data.
What does Medha mean?
Wiktionary, English section
Medha is “a female given name from Sanskrit used in India.” Its etymology gives the sense “wisdom, intelligence” (मेधा).
Borrowed from Sanskrit मेधा (medhā, “wisdom, intelligence”).
Meaning: Wiktionary, English section, as of Sep 25, 2026 (CC BY‑SA 4.0).
How popular is Medha?
#6,738 among girls’ names, 2025
Medha fell from #4,819 in 2015 to #6,738 in 2025 among girls’ names; its share of girls born fell from 16.2 to 10.6 per million.
64 babies in 2011, the peak
Medha peaked in 2011, when 64 girls were given it, #2,753 among girls’ names. The 17 births of 2025 are 27% of that peak.
| Year | Births | Rank | Per million girls |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 17 | #6,738 | 10.6 |
| 2024 | 22 | #5,732 | 13.6 |
| 2023 | 15 | #7,516 | 9.3 |
| 2022 | 26 | #5,121 | 15.9 |
| 2021 | 20 | #6,089 | 12.2 |
| 2020 | 28 | #4,713 | 17.3 |
| 2019 | 17 | #6,929 | 10.1 |
| 2018 | 25 | #5,273 | 14.7 |
| 2017 | 28 | #4,885 | 16.2 |
| 2016 | 34 | #4,320 | 19.2 |
Every recorded year (33)
| Year | Births | Rank | Per million girls |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 29 | #4,819 | 16.2 |
| 2014 | 38 | #3,974 | 21.3 |
| 2013 | 42 | #3,680 | 23.9 |
| 2012 | 50 | #3,302 | 28.4 |
| 2011 | 64 | #2,753 | 36.4 |
| 2010 | 54 | #3,107 | 30.4 |
| 2009 | 57 | #3,031 | 31.0 |
| 2008 | 41 | #3,911 | 21.7 |
| 2007 | 47 | #3,514 | 24.4 |
| 2006 | 37 | #4,054 | 19.5 |
| 2005 | 36 | #4,002 | 19.5 |
| 2004 | 50 | #3,111 | 27.2 |
| 2003 | 35 | #3,924 | 19.2 |
| 2002 | 19 | #6,043 | 10.6 |
| 2001 | 30 | #4,161 | 16.7 |
| 2000 | 21 | #5,433 | 11.6 |
| 1999 | 9 | #10,034 | 5.1 |
| 1998 | 10 | #9,032 | 5.7 |
| 1997 | 9 | #9,534 | 5.2 |
| 1996 | 6 | #12,875 | 3.4 |
| 1995 | 5 | #14,920 | 2.8 |
| 1994 | 7 | #11,325 | 3.9 |
| 1993 | 5 | #14,934 | 2.8 |
Ranks and shares: girls’ names in each year’s SSA file; share of all girls SSA recorded that year.
Is Medha a boy’s or a girl’s name?
Medha has been recorded only for girls: SSA lists no boys with the name in 33 years of records (it lists a name only in years with 5 or more babies of a sex).
Girls and boys named Medha: the SSA national file counts each sex separately.
How many people are named Medha, and how old are they?
An estimated 925 Americans named Medha and born in the U.S. are alive in 2026 (99% of everyone recorded); the median is 16 years old and half are between 11 and 21. An estimate from SSA’s births and life tables, not a count.
The 2020 Census counted 1,225 people named Medha (1,212 women and girls, 13 men and boys). SSA’s births carried forward to Census day, April 1, 2020, predict 806 born in the U.S. The Census count is 1.5 times that prediction. Possible reasons: the Census counts people born abroad, whom SSA’s files leave out, and it records the name people give, which SSA may have recorded under another spelling or as part of a compound name.
Living estimate: SSA births carried forward with the survival rates in SSA’s cohort life tables (2024 Trustees Report) for each birth year and sex. How the estimate is made. Count: Census Bureau, first names in the 2020 Census (released April 14, 2026; names reported 100 or more times, with the Bureau’s disclosure-avoidance adjustment).
Where are babies named Medha born?
| State | Births 2025 | Rank, girls | vs. national |
|---|---|---|---|
| Texas | 6 | #3,175 | 0.4× |
Where Medha is more common than its national share predicts
Relative to its national share, Medha is most over-represented in California: since 1993 it was given 1.4 times as often there as its national share each year would predict.
States: SSA state file, 1910-2025, published May 8, 2026; births count girls and boys together, and the rank is among girls’ names in the state in 2025. The file leaves out any state and year with fewer than 5 babies of the name, so small states are undercounted; each ratio compares the state’s births of Medha with the births its national share predicts year by year, for states with at least 100 births of the name.
Names spelled alike
Of these 4 names spelled alike, given to 3,490 babies since 1880, Medha is the second most given (27% of them).
Spelled alike: names in the SSA national file with the same pattern of letters and sounds and at most two letters apart, and Wiktionary’s listed forms; births since 1880 and in 2025, and each name’s peak year, from the SSA national file, published May 8, 2026. Some are separate names, not spellings of one.
Names that rose and fell in the same decades as Medha
Names whose births rose and fell across the same decades, measured on each decade’s share of births.
Similar histories: each decade’s share of births, from the SSA national file, 1880-2025, published May 8, 2026. SSA’s notes on the data.
More about Medha and names like it
- Compare Medha and MedaBirths, ranks, peak and the living estimate side by side.
- The most given names of the 2010sMedha peaked in 2011.
- California’s most given namesThe state where SSA recorded the most babies named Medha since 1910.
- Sanskrit namesWiktionary’s origin for Medha: every such name, by how often it is given.
- The top names of 2011The year the most babies were named Medha.
- The names of Generation ZMost people named Medha alive today were born 1997-2012.
- Names starting with MMost given first.