Meral
Meral was given to 16 girls in 2025, #7,031 among girls’ names; 228 Americans have been recorded with it since 1985 (Social Security Administration, published May 2026).
Girls and boys together; gaps are years SSA did not record (fewer than 5 births).
Births of Meral by year: SSA national baby-name file, 1880-2025, published May 8, 2026. SSA’s notes on the data.
What does Meral mean?
Wiktionary, Turkish section
Meral is “a female given name”
From Ottoman Turkish مرال (meral), ultimately from Middle Mongol 馬闌勒 (mǎránlè /maral/). Doublet of Maral.
Meaning: Wiktionary, Turkish section, as of Sep 25, 2026 (CC BY‑SA 4.0).
How popular is Meral?
#7,031 among girls’ names, 2025
Meral rose from #8,774 in 2015 to #7,031 in 2025 among girls’ names; its share of girls born rose from 7.3 to 10.0 per million.
24 babies in 2018, the peak
Meral peaked in 2018, when 24 girls were given it, #5,406 among girls’ names. The 16 births of 2025 are 67% of that peak.
| Year | Births | Rank | Per million girls |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 16 | #7,031 | 10.0 |
| 2024 | 9 | #10,813 | 5.6 |
| 2023 | 10 | #10,090 | 6.2 |
| 2022 | 11 | #9,444 | 6.7 |
| 2021 | 5 | #16,865 | 3.0 |
| 2020 | 15 | #7,446 | 9.3 |
| 2019 | 13 | #8,444 | 7.7 |
| 2018 | 24 | #5,406 | 14.1 |
| 2017 | 17 | #6,997 | 9.8 |
| 2016 | 13 | #8,709 | 7.3 |
Every recorded year (19)
| Year | Births | Rank | Per million girls |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 13 | #8,774 | 7.3 |
| 2014 | 13 | #8,797 | 7.3 |
| 2013 | 17 | #7,279 | 9.7 |
| 2012 | 12 | #9,526 | 6.8 |
| 2011 | 14 | #8,483 | 8.0 |
| 2010 | 6 | #16,295 | 3.4 |
| 2009 | 5 | #19,231 | 2.7 |
| 2008 | 10 | #11,318 | 5.3 |
| 1985 | 5 | #11,806 | 2.9 |
Ranks and shares: girls’ names in each year’s SSA file; share of all girls SSA recorded that year.
Is Meral a boy’s or a girl’s name?
Meral has been recorded only for girls: SSA lists no boys with the name in 19 years of records (it lists a name only in years with 5 or more babies of a sex).
Girls and boys named Meral: the SSA national file counts each sex separately.
How many people are named Meral, and how old are they?
An estimated 226 Americans named Meral and born in the U.S. are alive in 2026 (99% of everyone recorded); the median is 9 years old and half are between 6 and 13. An estimate from SSA’s births and life tables, not a count.
The 2020 Census counted 455 people named Meral (426 women and girls, 29 men and boys). SSA’s births carried forward to Census day, April 1, 2020, predict 165 born in the U.S. The Census count is 2.8 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).
Names spelled alike
Of these 5 names spelled alike, given to 6,545 babies since 1880, Meral is the fourth most given (3.5% of them). In 2025 it was given to 16 of their 28 babies (57%), the 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 Meral
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 Meral and names like it
- Compare Meral and MerylBirths, ranks, peak and the living estimate side by side.
- The most given names of the 2010sMeral peaked in 2018.
- New York’s most given namesThe state where SSA recorded the most babies named Meral since 1910.
- Turkish namesWiktionary’s origin for Meral: every such name, by how often it is given.
- The top names of 2018The year the most babies were named Meral.
- The names of Generation AlphaMost people named Meral alive today were born 2013-2025.
- Names starting with MMost given first.