Name Awesome

Merjem

Girls' name

Possibly to be bitter, through מִרְיָם

Merjem has been given to 25 babies in the U.S. since 2009. 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 2009, with 5 recorded.

Babies named Merjem, 2020

1 in 668,000

Merjem over time, 1880–2025

Girls
024618801900192019401960198020002020

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Merjem: meaning, origin, and history

Possibly to be bitter, through מִרְיָם

Arabic

What Merjem means

Merjem belongs to the name family reached through Merjem → מִרְיָם. Its meaning is “to be bitter”.

Origin, language, and formation

Merjem is used in Serbo-Croatian. Its origins include Arabic.

Merjem comes through Arabic مَرْيَم, Aramaic מרים and Biblical Hebrew מִרְיָם.

Related names and everyday forms

Related names include Mary, Marija and מִרְיָם.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 25 girls were recorded with the name Merjem between 2009 and 2020. Its highest annual count was 5 in 2009; its best national rank was #16,713 in 2020.

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 Merjem?

Merjem had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 2020, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 2020
1 in 668,000
5 of 3,342,313 births
Among girls only
1 in 323,000
<0.01% of girls
Rank, 2020
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
463,344 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Merjem 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 2020 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 463,344 children born in 2020 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Merjem. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Merjems were born

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

Median birth year
2014
About 11 years old
Biggest decade
2010s
60.0% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
100.0%
A modern name
Recorded since 1950
25
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

2010s — 60.0% of all recorded uses (15).

Is Merjem 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 2009 (5)
Years since peak
16
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Very steady
0% average annual change
Best rank ever
#16,713
2020

Spellings of Merjem

Merjem is not the most common spelling — Merle is, with 87.8% against Merjem's 0.15%.

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.

Merjem around the world

Where Merjem 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
    2017–2019
    #7,022
    in 2019

Popularity data from Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques. INSEE data under Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0.

Merjem 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
#16,713
2020
Peak year
2009
5 that year
First recorded
2009
Last recorded
2020
All-time count
25
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Merjem

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

MervatMersanaMerittMerolaMeridyMerrisMeralyMerritMerliaMernieMerimaMervinMerikaMeredyMerabMeryahMerleeMereteMerceeMeravMeryssaMercerMerrelMerwyn

Sibling names for Merjem

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 Merjem

Top names of 2009, Merjem's peak yearThe 2000s in fullOther names that peaked in 2020Girls' names starting with M