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Malisa

Girls' name

Meaning and linguistic origin unconfirmed

Malisa has been given to 2,340 babies in the U.S. since 1885. 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 1973, with 104 recorded.

Babies named Malisa, 2021

1 in 565,000

Malisa over time, 1880–2025

Girls
05010015018801900192019401960198020002020

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Malisa: meaning, origin, and history

Meaning and linguistic origin unconfirmed

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Malisa means

Malisa is a given name.

The naming story behind Malisa

Wikidata records Malisa as a female given name. The entity identifier is Q123463207, and the classification was checked on 2026-10-20. The spelling matches a source label or alias exactly, without removing accents or linking it to a name merely because the letters look similar.

A database classification is different from an etymological explanation, so those questions remain open in the short meaning.

A modern root explanation needs an additional naming or linguistic reference.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 2,340 girls were recorded with the name Malisa between 1885 and 2021. Its highest annual count was 104 in 1973; its best national rank was #1,003 in 1885.

Sources & methodologyReferences, data & attribution

Meaning, origin, and language notes draw on the references below.

American popularity figures use published Social Security Administration records for this exact spelling. Counts below five for a name, sex, and year are omitted.

How common is Malisa?

Malisa had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 2021, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 2021
1 in 565,000
6 of 3,389,958 births
Among girls only
1 in 273,000
<0.01% of girls
Rank, 2021
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
391,624 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Malisa sits on the popularity scale

Rarest published (5 a year)#1 — Olivia (13,544)

Chance at least one other child shares the name

If the other children were drawn at random from the 2021 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.

Class of 20Under 1%
Class of 30Under 1%
Grade of 100Under 1%
School of 500Under 1%

Put another way: gather 391,624 children born in 2021 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Malisa. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Malisas were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Malisa was born before 1977 — so the typical Malisa is around 48 today.

Median birth year
1977
About 48 years old
Biggest decade
1970s
37.0% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
8.1%
Mostly a past generation
Recorded since 1950
2,314
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1970s — 37.0% of all recorded uses (866).

Is Malisa 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 1973 (104)
Years since peak
52
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
25.6% average annual change
Best rank ever
#1,003
1885

Spellings of Malisa

Malisa is not the most common spelling — Lisa is, with 29.6% against Malisa's 0.07%.

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 Malisa is used

Across 1910–2025, Malisa was most concentrated in California — about 1 in 100,000 girls, against 1 in 168,328 across all states with data. It was least common in Tennessee (1 in —).

01 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1California1 in 100,000
  2. 2Georgia1 in 100,000
  3. 3Illinois1 in 100,000
  4. 4Kentucky1 in 100,000
  5. 5Michigan1 in 100,000
  6. 6Texas1 in 100,000
  7. 7Utah1 in 100,000
  8. 8Washington1 in 100,000

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. Malisa has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Malisa around the world

Where Malisa 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 & Wales
    2011–2011
    #5,785
    in 2011
  • France
    1992–2009
    #5,607
    in 2009
  • South Australia
    1972–2007
    #803
    in 2007

Popularity data from Office for National Statistics, Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques and Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). ONS data under Open Government Licence v3.0. INSEE data under Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0. CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0.

Malisa in other languages

Cross-language forms and variants of Malisa. Linked forms have their own page here.

MaliseMelisaMalissa

Variant forms from Wikidata (CC0). Most are used mainly outside the United States; U.S. birth records statistics cover US usage only.

Malisa by the numbers

The raw record for each sex the name is used for.

As a girl's name

Rank in 2025
Unranked
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
—
Best rank ever
#1,003
1885
Peak year
1973
104 that year
First recorded
1885
Last recorded
2021
All-time count
2,340
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Malisa

Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.

MaliyaMallieMalihaMaloryMalenaMalinaMalanaMaleiaMalikaMaleaMaliahMalaikaMaleniMalkyMalaniMaloriMalloriMalakMalaynaMalayaMalorieMalerieMalayahMaleah

Names with a curve like Malisa

Not spelling — timing. These names rose, peaked and faded in the same years as Malisa, so they read as being from the same moment even when they look nothing alike.

LarhondaFelicaLarondaLatinaShonaBrittMelyndaShawndaMarivelChariseShonnaKarey

Sibling names for Malisa

Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.

Explore around Malisa

Top names of 1973, Malisa's peak yearThe 1970s in fullOther names that peaked in 1885Girls' names starting with M