Merita — girls' name

What the Data Says About Merita

The Social Security Administration has registered 1,121 babies named Merita between 1912 and 1999, spanning 88 consecutive years of U.S. birth records. As a girl's name, Merita currently falls outside the top 1,000 girls' names for 1999. The name reached its historical peak in 1955, when 46 babies received it in a single year.

Decade-level aggregation shows that Merita performed strongest in the 1950s, accumulating 302 births during that ten-year window. Across the 9 decades of recorded activity, Merita shows a clear decline from its mid-century high. Geographically, the name is most concentrated in North Carolina, which accounts for 50 births — the largest state-level total in the dataset — followed by Georgia and Alabama. In total, SSA state-level files list Merita in 4 of the 51 U.S. reporting jurisdictions.

No etymological entry is currently available for Merita 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 1,121 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.