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Medea

Girls' name

Plans, counsel, cunning

Medea has been given to 202 babies in the U.S. since 1961. 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 1975, with 14 recorded.

Babies named Medea, 2008

1 in 562,000

Medea over time, 1880–2025

Girls
05101518801900192019401960198020002020

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Medea: meaning, origin, and history

Plans, counsel, cunning

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Medea means

Medea means “plans, counsel, cunning”.

Documented naming usage and pronunciation

Medea is used in Greek Mythology (Latinized) and Georgian.

Another recorded pronunciation is /mə.ˈdiː.ə/ and /mɛ.dɛ.ɑ/ for Medea.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 202 girls were recorded with the name Medea between 1961 and 2008. Its highest annual count was 14 in 1975; its best national rank was #4,209 in 1967.

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 Medea?

Medea had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 2008, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 2008
1 in 562,000
7 of 3,930,727 births
Among girls only
1 in 270,000
<0.01% of girls
Rank, 2008
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
389,226 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Medea 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 2008 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 389,226 children born in 2008 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Medea. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Medeas were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Medea was born before 1975 — so the typical Medea is around 50 today.

Median birth year
1975
About 50 years old
Biggest decade
1970s
39.1% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
25.7%
Spread across generations
Recorded since 1950
202
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1970s — 39.1% of all recorded uses (79).

Is Medea 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 1975 (14)
Years since peak
50
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
33.8% average annual change
Best rank ever
#4,209
1967

Spellings of Medea

Medea is not the most common spelling — Edna is, with 58.5% against Medea's 0.04%.

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.

Medea around the world

Where Medea 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
    2021–2021
    #4,634
    in 2021
  • France
    1901–2025
    #6,083
    in 2025
  • South Australia
    1968–1975
    #675
    in 1975

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.

Medea 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
#4,209
1967
Peak year
1975
14 that year
First recorded
1961
Last recorded
2008
All-time count
202
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Medea

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

MedhaMedoraMediaJudeaAmadeaMedieAldeaMedinaJadeaNdeaAdeaMedleyIndeaNadeaMeddieLydeaMedraMedrithMedaEndeaShadeaMedliDeaMedelyn

Sibling names for Medea

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 Medea

Top names of 1975, Medea's peak yearThe 1970s in fullOther names that peaked in 1967Girls' names starting with MGeorgian Girl NamesGeorgian Names