Melissa — #376 US girls' name

What the Data Says About Melissa

The Social Security Administration has registered 759,386 babies named Melissa between 1880 and 2024, spanning 145 consecutive years of U.S. birth records. As a girl's name, Melissa currently holds the #376 rank among girls for 2024. The name reached its historical peak in 1979, when 34,050 babies received it in a single year.

Decade-level aggregation shows that Melissa performed strongest in the 1970s, accumulating 253,268 births during that ten-year window. Across the 15 decades of recorded activity, Melissa shows a clear decline from its mid-century high. Geographically, the name is most concentrated in California, which accounts for 86,452 births — the largest state-level total in the dataset — followed by Texas and New York. In total, SSA state-level files list Melissa in 51 of the 51 U.S. reporting jurisdictions.

No etymological entry is currently available for Melissa in our reference dataset. These figures derive from SSA's annual national and state-level name files, which include any name appearing at least five times in a given year or state-year; names below that threshold are suppressed for privacy and therefore excluded from the totals shown here. The 759,386 total represents a lower bound — actual usage may be higher in years or states where the count fell below the disclosure floor. This page is provided for informational and research purposes only and does not constitute personal, legal, or naming advice.