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Merissa

Girls' name

Variant of Marissa

Merissa has been given to 3,412 babies in the U.S. since 1962. 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 1995, with 172 recorded.

Babies named Merissa, 2019

1 in 579,000

Merissa over time, 1880–2025

Girls
05010015020018801900192019401960198020002020

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Merissa: meaning, origin, and history

Variant of Marissa

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Merissa means

Merissa is a variant of Marissa.

Origin, language, and formation

Merissa is used in English.

Related names and everyday forms

Related names include Marissa.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 3,412 girls were recorded with the name Merissa between 1962 and 2019. Its highest annual count was 172 in 1995; its best national rank was #1,044 in 1995.

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.

Wiktionary material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

How common is Merissa?

Merissa had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 2019, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 2019
1 in 579,000
6 of 3,472,229 births
Among girls only
1 in 280,000
<0.01% of girls
Rank, 2019
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
401,129 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Merissa 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 2019 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 401,129 children born in 2019 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Merissa. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Merissas were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Merissa was born before 1993 — so the typical Merissa is around 32 today.

Median birth year
1993
About 32 years old
Biggest decade
1990s
41.0% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
42.0%
Spread across generations
Recorded since 1950
3,412
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1990s — 41.0% of all recorded uses (1,400).

Is Merissa 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 1995 (172)
Years since peak
30
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Shifting
18.0% average annual change
Best rank ever
#1,044
1995

Spellings of Merissa

Merissa is not the most common spelling — Melissa is, with 69.1% against Merissa's 0.31%.

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 Merissa is used

Across 1910–2025, Merissa was most concentrated in California — about 1 in 33,333 girls, against 1 in 72,959 across all states with data. It was least common in Oklahoma (1 in —).

03 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1California1 in 33,333
  2. 2Michigan1 in 50,000
  3. 3New Mexico1 in 50,000
  4. 4New York1 in 50,000
  5. 5Oregon1 in 50,000
  6. 6Texas1 in 50,000
  7. 7Washington1 in 50,000
  8. 8Arizona1 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. Merissa has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Merissa around the world

Where Merissa 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
    1996–2012
    #5,876
    in 2012
  • Scotland
    2008–2008
    #793
    in 2008
  • Ireland
    1996–1996
    #534
    in 1996
  • Canada
    1991–2021
    #2,046
    in 2021
  • South Australia
    1970–1989
    #692
    in 1989

Popularity data from Office for National Statistics, National Records of Scotland, Central Statistics Office, Statistics Canada and Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). ONS, NRS data under Open Government Licence v3.0. CSO, CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0. StatCan data under Statistics Canada Open Licence.

Notable people named Merissa

People whose public names include Merissa, 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.

Merissa in other languages

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

Marisa

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

Merissa 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
#1,044
1995
Peak year
1995
172 that year
First recorded
1962
Last recorded
2019
All-time count
3,412
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Merissa

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

MerrittMerrillMercedezMerrilyMerrissaJalissaJenessaMerandaYulissaMerlynMeridaMerleneMerilynMerariNerissaMerrickTeressaMerylAllyssaJalyssaHadassaMerlinAlessaKlarissa

Names with a curve like Merissa

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

LashayDanishaJenaeMyeshaKeyonaKarisaMerandaJeseniaAshiaKortneyTiarraKatey

Sibling names for Merissa

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 Merissa

Top names of 1995, Merissa's peak yearThe 1990s in fullOther names that peaked in 1995Girls' names starting with M