Merilee
Girls' nameMeaning not yet documented
Merilee has been given to 1,150 babies in the U.S. since 1929. 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 1961, with 54 recorded.
Babies named Merilee, 2014
1 in 741,000
Merilee 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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.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 Merilee?
Merilee had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 2014, the last year it was published.
- Among all babies, 2014
- 1 in 741,000
- 5 of 3,706,812 births
- Among girls only
- 1 in 357,000
- <0.01% of girls
- Rank, 2014
- Unranked
- Fewer than 5 uses
- Coin-flip room size
- 513,874 kids
- Even odds of a second one
Where Merilee sits on the popularity scale
Chance at least one other child shares the name
If the other children were drawn at random from the 2014 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.
Put another way: gather 513,874 children born in 2014 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Merilee. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.
When Merilees were born
Half of everyone ever recorded as Merilee was born before 1958 — so the typical Merilee is around 67 today.
- Biggest decade
- 1950s
- 29.6% of all use
- Born in the last 25 years
- 0.87%
- Mostly a past generation
- Recorded since 1950
- 864
- People you could plausibly meet
1950s — 29.6% of all recorded uses (340).
Is Merilee 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 1961 (54)
- Years since peak
- 64
- Years
- Year-to-year steadiness
- Volatile
- 34.3% average annual change
Spellings of Merilee
Merilee is not the most common spelling — Emilee is, with 28.2% against Merilee's 1.4%.
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 Merilee is used
Across 1910–2025, Merilee was most concentrated in California — about 1 in 100,000 girls, against 1 in 277,371 across all states with data. It was least common in Washington (1 in —).
Most concentrated
- 1California1 in 100,000
- 2Utah1 in 100,000
- 3Illinois1 in —
- 4Minnesota1 in —
- 5New York1 in —
- 6Oregon1 in —
- 7Washington1 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. Merilee has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.
Merilee around the world
Where Merilee 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.
- South Australia1953–1960#617in 1960
Popularity data from Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0.
Merilee by the numbers
The raw record for each sex the name is used for.
Names similar to Merilee
Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.
Sibling names for Merilee
Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.