Merina
Merina was last recorded in 2024, when 6 babies were given it; 338 Americans have been recorded with it between 1965 and 2024 (Social Security Administration, published May 2026).
Girls and boys together; gaps are years SSA did not record (fewer than 5 births).
Births of Merina by year: SSA national baby-name file, 1880-2025, published May 8, 2026. SSA’s notes on the data.
How popular is Merina?
Unranked in 2025
Its last girls’ rank on record is #14,675, in 2024; SSA lists a name only in years with 5 or more births.
19 babies in 1998, the peak
Merina peaked in 1998, when 19 girls were given it, #5,510 among girls’ names. It was not recorded in 2025.
| Year | Births | Rank | Per million girls |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | 6 | #14,675 | 3.7 |
| 2022 | 5 | #16,928 | 3.0 |
| 2021 | 5 | #16,868 | 3.0 |
| 2019 | 5 | #17,196 | 3.0 |
| 2018 | 5 | #17,336 | 2.9 |
| 2017 | 8 | #12,386 | 4.6 |
| 2016 | 5 | #17,978 | 2.8 |
| 2015 | 7 | #13,993 | 3.9 |
| 2014 | 8 | #12,703 | 4.5 |
| 2013 | 6 | #15,900 | 3.4 |
Every recorded year (37)
| Year | Births | Rank | Per million girls |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | 5 | #18,645 | 2.8 |
| 2011 | 6 | #16,124 | 3.4 |
| 2008 | 5 | #19,491 | 2.6 |
| 2006 | 8 | #13,196 | 4.2 |
| 2005 | 9 | #11,521 | 4.9 |
| 2004 | 6 | #15,418 | 3.3 |
| 2003 | 13 | #8,324 | 7.1 |
| 2002 | 11 | #9,260 | 6.1 |
| 2001 | 9 | #10,714 | 5.0 |
| 2000 | 15 | #7,030 | 8.3 |
| 1999 | 16 | #6,383 | 9.0 |
| 1998 | 19 | #5,510 | 10.8 |
| 1997 | 13 | #7,137 | 7.5 |
| 1996 | 15 | #6,262 | 8.6 |
| 1995 | 14 | #6,497 | 8.0 |
| 1994 | 15 | #6,203 | 8.4 |
| 1993 | 17 | #5,593 | 9.4 |
| 1992 | 14 | #6,527 | 7.6 |
| 1991 | 10 | #8,375 | 5.3 |
| 1990 | 13 | #6,721 | 6.8 |
| 1989 | 7 | #10,439 | 3.8 |
| 1987 | 9 | #7,773 | 5.2 |
| 1984 | 8 | #7,877 | 4.8 |
| 1980 | 5 | #11,491 | 3.0 |
| 1971 | 6 | #7,981 | 3.6 |
| 1970 | 5 | #8,842 | 2.9 |
| 1965 | 5 | #7,187 | 2.8 |
Ranks and shares: girls’ names in each year’s SSA file; share of all girls SSA recorded that year.
Is Merina a boy’s or a girl’s name?
Merina has been recorded only for girls: SSA lists no boys with the name in 37 years of records (it lists a name only in years with 5 or more babies of a sex).
Girls and boys named Merina: the SSA national file counts each sex separately.
How many people are named Merina, and how old are they?
An estimated 332 Americans named Merina and born in the U.S. are alive in 2026 (98% of everyone recorded); the median is 28 years old and half are between 20 and 33. An estimate from SSA’s births and life tables, not a count.
The 2020 Census counted 608 people named Merina (592 women and girls, 16 men and boys). SSA’s births carried forward to Census day, April 1, 2020, predict 317 born in the U.S. The Census count is 1.9 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 2 names spelled alike, given to 2,799 babies since 1880, Merina is the second most given (12% of them).
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 Merina
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 Merina and names like it
- Compare Merina and MernaBirths, ranks, peak and the living estimate side by side.
- The most given names of the 1990sMerina peaked in 1998.
- California’s most given namesThe state where SSA recorded the most babies named Merina since 1910.
- The top names of 1998The year the most babies were named Merina.
- The names of Generation ZMost people named Merina alive today were born 1997-2012.
- Names starting with MMost given first.