Merle — #4555 US boys' name

What the Data Says About Merle

The Social Security Administration has registered 30,630 babies named Merle between 1880 and 2024, spanning 145 consecutive years of U.S. birth records. As a boy's name, Merle currently holds the #4555 rank among boys for 2024. The name reached its historical peak in 1925, when 836 babies received it in a single year. Merle is classified as unisex in SSA records: the opposite-sex variant accounts for 14,718 additional births since 1880.

Decade-level aggregation shows that Merle performed strongest in the 1920s, accumulating 7,970 births during that ten-year window. Across the 15 decades of recorded activity, Merle shows a clear decline from its mid-century high. Geographically, the name is most concentrated in Pennsylvania, which accounts for 3,711 births — the largest state-level total in the dataset — followed by Iowa and Illinois. In total, SSA state-level files list Merle in 41 of the 51 U.S. reporting jurisdictions.

No etymological entry is currently available for Merle 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 30,630 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.