Meryem
Meryem was given to 28 girls in 2025, #4,835 among girls’ names; 624 Americans have been recorded with it since 1992 (Social Security Administration, published May 2026).
Girls and boys together; gaps are years SSA did not record (fewer than 5 births).
Births of Meryem by year: SSA national baby-name file, 1880-2025, published May 8, 2026. SSA’s notes on the data.
What does Meryem mean?
Wiktionary, Turkish section
Meryem is “a female given name from Arabic, equivalent to English Mary or Miriam”
Inherited from Ottoman Turkish مریم (meryem), from Arabic مَرْيَم (maryam), from Hebrew מרים (miryām).
/mɛɾˈjɛm/
Meaning: Wiktionary, Turkish section, as of Sep 25, 2026 (CC BY‑SA 4.0).
How popular is Meryem?
#4,835 among girls’ names, 2025
Meryem rose from #5,074 in 2015 to #4,835 in 2025 among girls’ names; its share of girls born rose from 15.1 to 17.4 per million.
39 babies in 2014, the peak
Meryem peaked in 2014, when 39 girls were given it, #3,892 among girls’ names. The 28 births of 2025 are 72% of that peak.
| Year | Births | Rank | Per million girls |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 28 | #4,835 | 17.4 |
| 2024 | 30 | #4,629 | 18.5 |
| 2023 | 33 | #4,330 | 20.6 |
| 2022 | 33 | #4,345 | 20.1 |
| 2021 | 28 | #4,796 | 17.1 |
| 2020 | 23 | #5,432 | 14.2 |
| 2019 | 38 | #3,890 | 22.6 |
| 2018 | 34 | #4,211 | 20.0 |
| 2017 | 33 | #4,348 | 19.1 |
| 2016 | 29 | #4,806 | 16.4 |
Every recorded year (32)
| Year | Births | Rank | Per million girls |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 27 | #5,074 | 15.1 |
| 2014 | 39 | #3,892 | 21.8 |
| 2013 | 24 | #5,603 | 13.7 |
| 2012 | 23 | #5,835 | 13.1 |
| 2011 | 16 | #7,677 | 9.1 |
| 2010 | 20 | #6,560 | 11.3 |
| 2009 | 16 | #7,947 | 8.7 |
| 2008 | 23 | #6,076 | 12.2 |
| 2007 | 16 | #7,969 | 8.3 |
| 2006 | 11 | #10,385 | 5.8 |
| 2005 | 16 | #7,378 | 8.7 |
| 2004 | 10 | #10,439 | 5.4 |
| 2003 | 6 | #15,126 | 3.3 |
| 2002 | 10 | #9,999 | 5.6 |
| 2001 | 10 | #9,850 | 5.6 |
| 2000 | 7 | #12,673 | 3.9 |
| 1999 | 10 | #9,249 | 5.6 |
| 1998 | 5 | #15,744 | 2.8 |
| 1997 | 9 | #9,540 | 5.2 |
| 1996 | 6 | #12,895 | 3.4 |
| 1994 | 5 | #14,918 | 2.8 |
| 1992 | 6 | #12,791 | 3.3 |
Ranks and shares: girls’ names in each year’s SSA file; share of all girls SSA recorded that year.
Is Meryem a boy’s or a girl’s name?
Meryem has been recorded only for girls: SSA lists no boys with the name in 32 years of records (it lists a name only in years with 5 or more babies of a sex).
Girls and boys named Meryem: the SSA national file counts each sex separately.
How many people are named Meryem, and how old are they?
An estimated 619 Americans named Meryem and born in the U.S. are alive in 2026 (99% of everyone recorded); the median is 11 years old and half are between 6 and 17. An estimate from SSA’s births and life tables, not a count.
The 2020 Census counted 1,089 people named Meryem (1,086 women and girls, 3 men and boys). SSA’s births carried forward to Census day, April 1, 2020, predict 451 born in the U.S. The Census count is 2.4 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 4 names spelled alike, given to 2,225 babies since 1880, Meryem is the second most given (28% of them). In 2025 it was given to 28 of their 28 babies (100%), the most given that year.
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 Meryem
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 Meryem and names like it
- Compare Meryem and MeriamBirths, ranks, peak and the living estimate side by side.
- The most given names of the 2010sMeryem peaked in 2014.
- New York’s most given namesThe state where SSA recorded the most babies named Meryem since 1910.
- Arabic namesWiktionary’s origin for Meryem: every such name, by how often it is given.
- The top names of 2014The year the most babies were named Meryem.
- The names of Generation AlphaMost people named Meryem alive today were born 2013-2025.
- Names starting with MMost given first.