Girl Names That Start With M
Girls' names beginning with M, ranked by how many babies actually got them — not by editorial preference — plus which ones are climbing and how the letter itself has moved.
- Share of girls, 2025
- 9.1%
- vs 11.3% in 2000
- Names in use
- 1,486
- 6,013 recorded since 1880
- Letter peaked
- 1880
- at 21.7% of names
- Rank among 26 letters
- #3
- by 2025 share
How M has fared since 1880
Share of all listed U.S. births given a name starting with M, year by year. Plotted as a share rather than a count — raw counts track how many babies were born, so every letter would appear to peak in 1957.
| Save name | Name & meaning | History 1926–2025, yearly counts; individually scaled | Babies 2025 · rank | 5-year rank movement | Peak year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2,230#125 | Down 2 rank positions in five years | 1921 | |||
| 2,436#112 | Up 14 rank positions in five years | 1921 | |||
| 661#465 | Down 129 rank positions in five years | 1969 | |||
| 747#420 | Down 71 rank positions in five years | 1979 | |||
| 2,887#87 | Up 22 rank positions in five years | 1964 | |||
| 4,945#40 | Down 17 rank positions in five years | 2001 | |||
| 11,078#6 | Up 2 rank positions in five years | 2015 | |||
| 2,074#142 | Down 37 rank positions in five years | 1972 | |||
| 977#312 | Down 117 rank positions in five years | 1995 | |||
| 3,086#81 | Up 15 rank positions in five years | 1998 | |||
| 1,601#196 | Down 23 rank positions in five years | 1991 | |||
| 1,522#201 | Up 227 rank positions in five years | 1915 | |||
| 1,343#228 | Down 109 rank positions in five years | 2001 | |||
| 3,712#62 | Down 1 rank positions in five years | 2006 | |||
| 1,041#294 | Down 1 rank positions in five years | 2007 | |||
| 1,262#246 | Up 22 rank positions in five years | 1924 | |||
| 3,362#71 | Down 5 rank positions in five years | 2008 | |||
| 693#448 | Down 146 rank positions in five years | 1996 | |||
| 3,095#79 | Up 27 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 4,796#43 | Down 23 rank positions in five years | 2018 | |||
| 656#469 | Up 116 rank positions in five years | 1980 | |||
| 697#444 | Down 201 rank positions in five years | 2009 | |||
| 825#372 | Up 194 rank positions in five years | 1986 | |||
| 3,353#73 | Up 117 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 1,192#261 | Up 12 rank positions in five years | 2005 | |||
| 679#455 | Down 57 rank positions in five years | 1998 | |||
| 758#410 | Down 130 rank positions in five years | 2002 | |||
| 838#365 | Up 113 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 950#322 | Down 111 rank positions in five years | 2008 | |||
| 872#349 | Down 90 rank positions in five years | 2009 | |||
| 3,153#76 | Up 98 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 2,575#102 | Up 132 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 703#439 | Up 35 rank positions in five years | 2009 | |||
| 662#464 | Down 138 rank positions in five years | 2008 | |||
| 703#438 | Up 92 rank positions in five years | 2011 | |||
| 2,233#124 | Up 52 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 1,436#210 | Up 66 rank positions in five years | 2023 | |||
| 715#433 | Up 65 rank positions in five years | 2022 | |||
| 779#399 | Up 244 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 900#338 | Up 405 rank positions in five years | 2008 | |||
| 916#335 | Up 150 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 869#351 | Up 156 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 1,328#233 | Up 177 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 1,078#286 | Up 190 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 1,063#288 | Steady | 2022 | |||
| 658#467 | Up 74 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 822#374 | Up 120 rank positions in five years | 2024 | |||
| 733#424 | Up 546 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 783#397 | Up 582 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 958#319 | Up 2,490 rank positions in five years | 2025 |
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M names climbing fastest
Biggest M names of all time
By total applications since 1880 — a different list from the one above, because it counts every generation, not just this one.
Every other letter
Sources & methodology
Rankings and counts come from official birth card-application data, 1880–2025. Counts are card applications rather than births, and any name given to fewer than 5 babies of one sex in a year is not published — so “—” means genuinely uncommon, never invalid. The “climbing fastest” row ranks by five-year rank movement as a ratio, and a name must be inside the top 1,000 with at least 200 applications in 2025 to qualify — a looser gate than the site-wide trending list uses, because inside a single letter the stricter one leaves some letters empty. Letter shares are measured over listed names only, and the 25-year comparison is a generation rather than five years because letter fashion moves far more slowly than any one name.