Merlyn — boys' name

What the Data Says About Merlyn

The Social Security Administration has registered 3,404 babies named Merlyn between 1908 and 2022, spanning 115 consecutive years of U.S. birth records. As a boy's name, Merlyn currently falls outside the top 1,000 boys' names for 2022. The name reached its historical peak in 1930, when 137 babies received it in a single year. Merlyn is classified as unisex in SSA records: the opposite-sex variant accounts for 1,626 additional births since 1912.

Decade-level aggregation shows that Merlyn performed strongest in the 1930s, accumulating 1,095 births during that ten-year window. Across the 13 decades of recorded activity, Merlyn shows a clear decline from its mid-century high. Geographically, the name is most concentrated in Iowa, which accounts for 552 births — the largest state-level total in the dataset — followed by Minnesota and Wisconsin. In total, SSA state-level files list Merlyn in 15 of the 51 U.S. reporting jurisdictions.

No etymological entry is currently available for Merlyn 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 3,404 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.