Mela
Mela was given to 26 girls in 2025, #5,057 among girls’ names; 1,015 Americans have been recorded with it since 1905 (Social Security Administration, published May 2026).
Girls and boys together; gaps are years SSA did not record (fewer than 5 births).
Births of Mela by year: SSA national baby-name file, 1880-2025, published May 8, 2026. SSA’s notes on the data.
How popular is Mela?
#5,057 among girls’ names, 2025
Mela fell from #4,043 in 2015 to #5,057 in 2025 among girls’ names; its share of girls born fell from 20.7 to 16.2 per million.
55 babies in 2019, the peak
Mela peaked in 2019, when 55 girls were given it, #2,983 among girls’ names. The 26 births of 2025 are 47% of that peak.
| Year | Births | Rank | Per million girls |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 26 | #5,057 | 16.2 |
| 2024 | 24 | #5,393 | 14.8 |
| 2023 | 27 | #4,949 | 16.8 |
| 2022 | 32 | #4,432 | 19.5 |
| 2021 | 33 | #4,297 | 20.1 |
| 2020 | 48 | #3,262 | 29.7 |
| 2019 | 55 | #2,983 | 32.8 |
| 2018 | 40 | #3,772 | 23.5 |
| 2017 | 31 | #4,550 | 18.0 |
| 2016 | 32 | #4,492 | 18.1 |
Every recorded year (73)
| Year | Births | Rank | Per million girls |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 37 | #4,043 | 20.7 |
| 2014 | 38 | #3,975 | 21.3 |
| 2013 | 31 | #4,604 | 17.7 |
| 2012 | 29 | #4,926 | 16.5 |
| 2011 | 27 | #5,154 | 15.3 |
| 2010 | 18 | #7,116 | 10.1 |
| 2009 | 15 | #8,318 | 8.2 |
| 2008 | 20 | #6,731 | 10.6 |
| 2007 | 23 | #6,021 | 12.0 |
| 2006 | 24 | #5,653 | 12.6 |
| 2005 | 13 | #8,677 | 7.0 |
| 2004 | 12 | #9,074 | 6.5 |
| 2003 | 7 | #13,356 | 3.8 |
| 2002 | 8 | #11,812 | 4.5 |
| 1999 | 6 | #13,816 | 3.4 |
| 1998 | 8 | #10,770 | 4.5 |
| 1991 | 5 | #14,560 | 2.7 |
| 1988 | 5 | #13,112 | 2.8 |
| 1983 | 6 | #9,777 | 3.6 |
| 1980 | 6 | #9,868 | 3.6 |
| 1977 | 6 | #9,203 | 3.9 |
| 1976 | 5 | #10,268 | 3.4 |
| 1975 | 5 | #10,013 | 3.4 |
| 1973 | 5 | #9,266 | 3.4 |
| 1970 | 7 | #6,793 | 4.0 |
| 1969 | 5 | #8,218 | 3.0 |
| 1966 | 5 | #7,249 | 3.0 |
| 1964 | 5 | #7,437 | 2.6 |
| 1962 | 7 | #5,652 | 3.6 |
| 1959 | 11 | #3,954 | 5.4 |
| 1958 | 6 | #5,873 | 3.0 |
| 1956 | 5 | #6,563 | 2.5 |
| 1955 | 9 | #4,274 | 4.6 |
| 1954 | 10 | #3,880 | 5.1 |
| 1953 | 11 | #3,612 | 5.8 |
| 1951 | 7 | #4,678 | 3.9 |
| 1950 | 5 | #5,837 | 2.9 |
| 1947 | 8 | #4,227 | 4.5 |
| 1946 | 6 | #4,794 | 3.8 |
| 1944 | 6 | #4,381 | 4.5 |
| 1941 | 5 | #4,844 | 4.1 |
| 1940 | 6 | #4,189 | 5.2 |
| 1934 | 14 | #2,255 | 13.4 |
| 1933 | 8 | #3,309 | 7.9 |
| 1932 | 13 | #2,449 | 12.2 |
| 1931 | 5 | #4,759 | 4.7 |
| 1930 | 8 | #3,553 | 7.1 |
| 1929 | 9 | #3,298 | 8.1 |
| 1928 | 13 | #2,583 | 11.3 |
| 1927 | 15 | #2,402 | 12.6 |
| 1926 | 8 | #3,786 | 6.7 |
| 1925 | 6 | #4,778 | 4.9 |
| 1924 | 7 | #4,304 | 5.6 |
| 1923 | 5 | #5,462 | 4.1 |
| 1922 | 10 | #3,295 | 8.3 |
| 1921 | 9 | #3,581 | 7.3 |
| 1920 | 7 | #4,264 | 5.8 |
| 1919 | 10 | #3,146 | 8.8 |
| 1918 | 9 | #3,421 | 7.8 |
| 1916 | 8 | #3,454 | 7.7 |
| 1915 | 9 | #3,052 | 9.1 |
| 1914 | 6 | #3,479 | 7.9 |
| 1905 | 5 | #2,134 | 17.1 |
Ranks and shares: girls’ names in each year’s SSA file; share of all girls SSA recorded that year.
Is Mela a boy’s or a girl’s name?
Mela has been recorded only for girls: SSA lists no boys with the name in 73 years of records (it lists a name only in years with 5 or more babies of a sex).
Girls and boys named Mela: the SSA national file counts each sex separately.
How many people are named Mela, and how old are they?
An estimated 802 Americans named Mela and born in the U.S. are alive in 2026 (79% of everyone recorded); the median is 12 years old and half are between 7 and 20. An estimate from SSA’s births and life tables, not a count.
The 2020 Census counted 895 people named Mela (873 women and girls, 22 men and boys). SSA’s births carried forward to Census day, April 1, 2020, predict 654 born in the U.S. The Census count is 37% above that prediction. Possible reasons: the Census records the name people give, which for many is the short form Mela rather than the name on their birth record, and it counts people born abroad, whom SSA’s files leave out.
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 Mela born?
| State | Births 2025 | Rank, girls | vs. national |
|---|---|---|---|
| Texas | 5 | #3,640 | 0.1× |
Where Mela is more common than its national share predicts
Relative to its national share, Mela is most over-represented in New Mexico: since 1910 it was given 19.3 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 Mela 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 8 names spelled alike, given to 11,834 babies since 1880, Mela is the fourth most given (8.6% of them). In 2025 it was given to 26 of their 218 babies (12%), the third most given that year.
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 Mela
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 Mela and names like it
- Compare Mela and MeliaBirths, ranks, peak and the living estimate side by side.
- The most given names of the 2010sMela peaked in 2019.
- New Mexico’s most given namesThe state where SSA recorded the most babies named Mela since 1910.
- The top names of 2019The year the most babies were named Mela.
- The names of Generation AlphaMost people named Mela alive today were born 2013-2025.
- Names starting with MMost given first.