Merced — boys' name

What the Data Says About Merced

The Social Security Administration has registered 764 babies named Merced between 1905 and 2021, spanning 117 consecutive years of U.S. birth records. As a boy's name, Merced currently falls outside the top 1,000 boys' names for 2021. The name reached its historical peak in 1942, when 19 babies received it in a single year. Merced is classified as unisex in SSA records: the opposite-sex variant accounts for 181 additional births since 1914.

Decade-level aggregation shows that Merced performed strongest in the 1950s, accumulating 86 births during that ten-year window. Across the 13 decades of recorded activity, Merced shows a clear decline from its mid-century high. Geographically, the name is most concentrated in Texas, which accounts for 230 births — the largest state-level total in the dataset — followed by California. In total, SSA state-level files list Merced in 2 of the 51 U.S. reporting jurisdictions.

No etymological entry is currently available for Merced 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 764 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.