Mele
Mele was given to 13 girls in 2025, #8,177 among girls’ names; 927 Americans have been recorded with it since 1955 (Social Security Administration, published May 2026).
Girls and boys together; gaps are years SSA did not record (fewer than 5 births).
Births of Mele by year: SSA national baby-name file, 1880-2025, published May 8, 2026. SSA’s notes on the data.
What does Mele mean?
Wiktionary, Hawaiian section
Mele is “a female given name from English or Hawaiian”
Borrowed from English Mary. Identical with the Hawaiian word mele (“chant, song”).
/ˈme.le/
Meaning: Wiktionary, Hawaiian section, as of Sep 25, 2026 (CC BY‑SA 4.0).
How popular is Mele?
#8,177 among girls’ names, 2025
Mele fell from #5,247 in 2015 to #8,177 in 2025 among girls’ names; its share of girls born fell from 14.6 to 8.1 per million.
33 babies in 1991, the peak
Mele peaked in 1991, when 33 girls were given it, #3,336 among girls’ names. The 13 births of 2025 are 39% of that peak.
| Year | Births | Rank | Per million girls |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 13 | #8,177 | 8.1 |
| 2024 | 11 | #9,354 | 6.8 |
| 2023 | 12 | #8,800 | 7.5 |
| 2022 | 20 | #6,140 | 12.2 |
| 2021 | 17 | #6,877 | 10.4 |
| 2020 | 15 | #7,444 | 9.3 |
| 2019 | 20 | #6,110 | 11.9 |
| 2018 | 16 | #7,302 | 9.4 |
| 2017 | 13 | #8,615 | 7.5 |
| 2016 | 20 | #6,334 | 11.3 |
Every recorded year (57)
| Year | Births | Rank | Per million girls |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 26 | #5,247 | 14.6 |
| 2014 | 21 | #6,138 | 11.8 |
| 2013 | 16 | #7,627 | 9.1 |
| 2012 | 8 | #13,033 | 4.5 |
| 2011 | 10 | #10,914 | 5.7 |
| 2010 | 17 | #7,406 | 9.6 |
| 2009 | 22 | #6,237 | 12.0 |
| 2008 | 16 | #7,982 | 8.5 |
| 2007 | 26 | #5,475 | 13.5 |
| 2006 | 13 | #9,094 | 6.8 |
| 2005 | 23 | #5,545 | 12.4 |
| 2004 | 20 | #6,131 | 10.9 |
| 2003 | 18 | #6,485 | 9.9 |
| 2002 | 19 | #6,045 | 10.6 |
| 2001 | 22 | #5,304 | 12.2 |
| 2000 | 16 | #6,692 | 8.8 |
| 1999 | 21 | #5,146 | 11.8 |
| 1998 | 25 | #4,451 | 14.1 |
| 1997 | 17 | #5,787 | 9.8 |
| 1996 | 12 | #7,426 | 6.8 |
| 1995 | 18 | #5,358 | 10.2 |
| 1994 | 27 | #3,965 | 15.1 |
| 1993 | 17 | #5,590 | 9.4 |
| 1992 | 20 | #4,970 | 10.8 |
| 1991 | 33 | #3,336 | 17.6 |
| 1990 | 27 | #3,865 | 14.2 |
| 1989 | 23 | #4,200 | 12.5 |
| 1988 | 19 | #4,592 | 10.7 |
| 1987 | 20 | #4,216 | 11.5 |
| 1986 | 15 | #5,115 | 8.7 |
| 1985 | 23 | #3,690 | 13.4 |
| 1984 | 14 | #5,123 | 8.3 |
| 1983 | 17 | #4,407 | 10.2 |
| 1982 | 14 | #5,100 | 8.3 |
| 1981 | 12 | #5,777 | 7.2 |
| 1980 | 15 | #4,893 | 9.0 |
| 1979 | 13 | #5,299 | 8.1 |
| 1978 | 10 | #6,229 | 6.5 |
| 1977 | 7 | #8,082 | 4.6 |
| 1976 | 9 | #6,394 | 6.1 |
| 1975 | 11 | #5,380 | 7.5 |
| 1974 | 8 | #6,630 | 5.5 |
| 1973 | 7 | #7,138 | 4.8 |
| 1967 | 6 | #6,529 | 3.6 |
| 1965 | 5 | #7,177 | 2.8 |
| 1963 | 7 | #5,696 | 3.6 |
| 1955 | 5 | #6,417 | 2.6 |
Ranks and shares: girls’ names in each year’s SSA file; share of all girls SSA recorded that year.
Is Mele a boy’s or a girl’s name?
Mele has been recorded only for girls: SSA lists no boys with the name in 57 years of records (it lists a name only in years with 5 or more babies of a sex).
Girls and boys named Mele: the SSA national file counts each sex separately.
How many people are named Mele, and how old are they?
An estimated 907 Americans named Mele and born in the U.S. are alive in 2026 (98% of everyone recorded); the median is 27 years old and half are between 15 and 37. An estimate from SSA’s births and life tables, not a count.
The 2020 Census counted 1,366 people named Mele (1,316 women and girls, 50 men and boys). SSA’s births carried forward to Census day, April 1, 2020, predict 828 born in the U.S. The Census count is 1.6 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 Mele born?
| State | Births 2025 | Rank, girls | vs. national |
|---|---|---|---|
| California | 6 | #2,995 | 2.4× |
Where Mele is more common than its national share predicts
Relative to its national share, Mele is most over-represented in California: since 1955 it was given 2.4 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 Mele 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 13,272 babies since 1880, Mele is the sixth most given (7.0% of them). In 2025 it was given to 13 of their 211 babies (6.2%), the seventh 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 Mele
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 Mele and names like it
- Compare Mele and MeliaBirths, ranks, peak and the living estimate side by side.
- The most given names of the 1990sMele peaked in 1991.
- California’s most given namesThe state where SSA recorded the most babies named Mele since 1910.
- English namesWiktionary’s origin for Mele: every such name, by how often it is given.
- The top names of 1991The year the most babies were named Mele.
- The names of the MillennialsMost people named Mele alive today were born 1981-1996.
- Names starting with MMost given first.