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Meir

#948 in 2025Boys' name

Giving light

Meir has been given to 4,612 babies in the U.S. since 1951. In 2025 it ranked #948 of 13,926 boys’ names in use. Its peak year was 2024, with 258 recorded.

Babies named Meir, 2025

1 in 13,400

Meir over time, 1880–2025

Boys
010020030018801900192019401960198020002020

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Meir: meaning, origin, and history

Giving light

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Meir means

Meir means “giving light”.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 4,612 boys were recorded with the name Meir between 1951 and 2025. Its highest annual count was 258 in 2024; its best national rank was #908 in 2024.

Over 5 years its rank rose, from #970 in 2020 to #948 in 2025. Over 10 years its rank rose, from #1,212 in 2015 to #948 in 2025.

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 Meir?

Everything below is computed from the 2025 data — the most recent year available.

Among all babies, 2025
1 in 13,400
248 of 3,315,165 births
Among boys only
1 in 6,890
0.01% of boys
Rank, 2025
#948
of 13,926 boys’ names in use
Coin-flip room size
9,267 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Meir sits on the popularity scale

Rarest published (5 a year)#1 — Liam (20,818)

Chance at least one other child shares the name

If the other children were drawn at random from the 2025 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 5004%

Put another way: gather 9,267 children born in 2025 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Meir. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Meirs were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Meir was born before 2014 — so the typical Meir is around 11 today.

Median birth year
2014
About 11 years old
Biggest decade
2010s
32.4% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
78.4%
A modern name
Recorded since 1950
4,612
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

2010s — 32.4% of all recorded uses (1,492).

Is Meir 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
−40
Places dropped
Rank vs 5 years ago
+22
Places climbed
Rank vs 10 years ago
+264
Places climbed
Births vs 10 years ago
1.63×
More babies than then
Share of its own peak
96.1%
Peak was 2024 (258)
Years since peak
1
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Shifting
12.6% average annual change
Best rank ever
#908
2024

Spellings of Meir

Meir is not the most common spelling — Neil is, with 36.4% against Meir's 1.6%.

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 Meir is used

Across 2016–2025, Meir was most concentrated in New Jersey — about 1 in 588 boys, against 1 in 3,756 across all states with data. It was least common in Pennsylvania (1 in 100,000).

1170 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1New Jersey1 in 588
  2. 2New York1 in 917
  3. 3Maryland1 in 10,000
  4. 4Florida1 in 14,286
  5. 5California1 in 25,000
  6. 6Illinois1 in 33,333
  7. 7Ohio1 in 50,000
  8. 8Georgia1 in 100,000

Shading is the share of that state's recorded boys 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.

Meir around the world

Where Meir 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
    1997–2025
    #1,406
    in 2025
  • France
    1974–2025
    #3,175
    in 2025
  • Canada
    1991–2023
    #1,098
    in 2023

Popularity data from Office for National Statistics, Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques and Statistics Canada. ONS data under Open Government Licence v3.0. INSEE data under Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0. StatCan data under Statistics Canada Open Licence.

Notable people named Meir

People whose public names include Meir, backed by Wikidata given-name records and ordered by linked Wikimedia pages. The name may be a middle name.

People data from Wikidata (CC0). Fame is measured, not judged — the order reflects how widely each person is documented, not the U.S. birth records popularity this page is otherwise about.

Meir in other languages

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

Mayer

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

Meir by the numbers

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

As a boy's name

Rank in 2025
#948
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
Up 22
Best rank ever
#908
2024
Peak year
2024
258 that year
First recorded
1951
Last recorded
2025
All-time count
4,612
Count in 2025
248

Names similar to Meir

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

KeirAmeirJameirZyeirMeilechZyheirHeirKyeirZymeirMeikoMyheirDameirTymeirJahmeirJaheirKyzeirKymeirNyeirAhmeirZameirSyeirMyeirSameirKyheir

Names with a curve like Meir

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

ZevJeremiasImranTzviAviGenesisKylenDovidYahyaLaithIsaZahir

Sibling names for Meir

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 Meir

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