Makeba
Girls' nameMeaning not yet documented
Makeba has been given to 702 babies in the U.S. since 1962. It was used fewer than 5 times in 2025, so it doesn't appear in the latest year's list — today it's a genuinely uncommon pick. Its peak year was 1972, with 63 recorded.
Babies named Makeba, 2003
1 in 760,000
Makeba over time, 1880–2025
Based on births in the U.S. Babies given the name each year. Hover the chart — or focus it and use the arrow keys — for any year. Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.
How common is Makeba?
Makeba had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 2003, the last year it was published.
- Among all babies, 2003
- 1 in 760,000
- 5 of 3,801,425 births
- Among girls only
- 1 in 365,000
- <0.01% of girls
- Rank, 2003
- Unranked
- Fewer than 5 uses
- Coin-flip room size
- 526,991 kids
- Even odds of a second one
Where Makeba sits on the popularity scale
Chance at least one other child shares the name
If the other children were drawn at random from the 2003 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.
Put another way: gather 526,991 children born in 2003 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Makeba. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.
When Makebas were born
Half of everyone ever recorded as Makeba was born before 1975 — so the typical Makeba is around 50 today.
- Biggest decade
- 1970s
- 56.4% of all use
- Born in the last 25 years
- 31.5%
- Spread across generations
- Recorded since 1950
- 702
- People you could plausibly meet
1970s — 56.4% of all recorded uses (396).
Is Makeba rising or falling?
Rank movement and count movement can disagree — the number of distinct names in use keeps growing, so a name holding a steady count still slides down the list. Both are shown.
- Rank vs 1 year ago
- —
- Not ranked then
- Rank vs 5 years ago
- New entry
- Not ranked then
- Rank vs 10 years ago
- —
- Not ranked then
- Births vs 10 years ago
- —
- Not published both years
- Share of its own peak
- 0%
- Peak was 1972 (63)
- Years since peak
- 53
- Years
- Year-to-year steadiness
- Volatile
- 30.2% average annual change
Spellings of Makeba
Makeba is not the most common spelling — Makenna is, with 42.9% against Makeba's 0.89%.
Grouped by closeness of spelling (up to two letter changes), same sex, with a floor on all-time use. It catches Sophia/Sofia and Aiden/Ayden, and misses spellings that sound alike but look different, like Sean and Shawn.
Where Makeba is used
Across 1910–2025, Makeba was most concentrated in New York — about 1 in 100,000 girls, against 1 in 324,025 across all states with data. It was least common in Virginia (1 in —).
Most concentrated
- 1New York1 in 100,000
- 2California1 in —
- 3Georgia1 in —
- 4Illinois1 in —
- 5Ohio1 in —
- 6Pennsylvania1 in —
- 7Virginia1 in —
Shading is the share of that state's recorded girls given this name, not the raw count — otherwise the map would just show which states are biggest. Unshaded states have no published records for this period. U.S. birth records suppress state-year counts below 5; state counts therefore don't add up to the national total. Every state links to its full rankings. Makeba has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.
Makeba around the world
Where Makeba ranks in official birth records elsewhere in the world. Rankings only — the number of births isn’t comparable between places, so it isn’t shown.
- England & Wales2011–2011#5,785in 2011
- France1999–1999#4,813in 1999
Popularity data from Office for National Statistics and Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques. ONS data under Open Government Licence v3.0. INSEE data under Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0.
Makeba by the numbers
The raw record for each sex the name is used for.
Names similar to Makeba
Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.
Sibling names for Makeba
Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.