Name Awesome

Melville

Boys' name

Bad town

Melville has been given to 2,283 babies in the U.S. since 1880. 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 1918, with 77 recorded.

Babies named Melville, 1981

1 in 692,000

Melville over time, 1880–2025

BoysGirls
02040608018801900192019401960198020002020

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Melville: meaning, origin, and history

Bad town

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Melville means

Melville means “bad town”.

Documented naming usage and pronunciation

Melville is used in English.

Another recorded pronunciation is /ˈmɛl.vɪl/ for Melville.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 2,269 boys were recorded with the name Melville between 1880 and 1981. Its highest annual count was 77 in 1918; its best national rank was #436 in 1880.

In the United States, 14 girls were recorded with the name Melville between 1920 and 1921. Its highest annual count was 7 in 1920; its best national rank was #4,266 in 1920.

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 Melville?

Melville had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 1981, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 1981
1 in 692,000
5 of 3,459,130 births
Among boys only
1 in 358,000
<0.01% of boys
Rank, 1981
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
479,538 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Melville 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 1981 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 479,538 children born in 1981 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Melville. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Melvilles were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Melville was born before 1924 — so the typical Melville is around 101 today.

Median birth year
1924
About 101 years old
Biggest decade
1920s
23.2% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
8.4%
Mostly a past generation
Recorded since 1950
319
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1920s — 23.2% of all recorded uses (526).

Is Melville 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 1918 (77)
Years since peak
107
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Shifting
24.1% average annual change
Best rank ever
#436
1880

Spellings of Melville

Melville is not the most common spelling — Neville is, with 50.8% against Melville's 49.2%.

  • Neville50.8%2,343
  • Melville49.2%2,269

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 Melville is used

Across 1910–2025, Melville was most concentrated in New York — about 1 in 50,000 boys, against 1 in 209,913 across all states with data. It was least common in Virginia (1 in —).

02 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1New York1 in 50,000
  2. 2Illinois1 in 100,000
  3. 3California1 in —
  4. 4Louisiana1 in —
  5. 5Massachusetts1 in —
  6. 6Michigan1 in —
  7. 7New Jersey1 in —
  8. 8Ohio1 in —

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

Melville around the world

Where Melville 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.

  • France
    2002–2022
    #4,880
    in 2022
  • South Australia
    1944–2007
    #680
    in 2007

Popularity data from Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques and Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). INSEE data under Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0. CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0.

Notable people named Melville

People whose public names include Melville, 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.

Melville by the numbers

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

As a boy's name

Rank in 2025
Unranked
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
—
Best rank ever
#436
1880
Peak year
1918
77 that year
First recorded
1880
Last recorded
1981
All-time count
2,269
Count in 2025
Under 5

As a girl's name

Rank in 2025
Unranked
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
—
Best rank ever
#4,266
1920
Peak year
1920
7 that year
First recorded
1920
Last recorded
1921
All-time count
14
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Melville

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

NevilleLavelleMelissaCamilleMeliodasMelfordDanielleMarcelleMelbourneMichelleGranvilleMelchorShaquilleTyrelleJamelleGabrielleDarnelleMelanieMeltonChevelleMelvynMarkelleMelburnMelecio

Names with a curve like Melville

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

AdelbertVivianMilburnEwellFinisVesterElzaWorthManleyClareAloisNorval

Sibling names for Melville

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 Melville

Top names of 1918, Melville's peak yearThe 1910s in fullOther names that peaked in 1880Boys' names starting with M