Name Awesome

Merlinda

Girls' name

Literal meaning not recorded

Merlinda has been given to 530 babies in the U.S. since 1931. 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 1964, with 22 recorded.

Babies named Merlinda, 2009

1 in 637,000

Merlinda over time, 1880–2025

Girls
010203018801900192019401960198020002020

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Merlinda: meaning, origin, and history

Literal meaning not recorded

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Merlinda means

Merlinda is a given name.

Origin, language, and formation

Merlinda is used in Cebuano.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 530 girls were recorded with the name Merlinda between 1931 and 2009. Its highest annual count was 22 in 1964; its best national rank was #2,632 in 1958.

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 Merlinda?

Merlinda had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 2009, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 2009
1 in 637,000
6 of 3,820,315 births
Among girls only
1 in 306,000
<0.01% of girls
Rank, 2009
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
441,341 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Merlinda 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 2009 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 441,341 children born in 2009 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Merlinda. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Merlindas were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Merlinda was born before 1964 — so the typical Merlinda is around 61 today.

Median birth year
1964
About 61 years old
Biggest decade
1960s
28.3% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
8.3%
Mostly a past generation
Recorded since 1950
450
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1960s — 28.3% of all recorded uses (150).

Is Merlinda 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 1964 (22)
Years since peak
61
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
29.7% average annual change
Best rank ever
#2,632
1958

Spellings of Merlinda

Merlinda is not the most common spelling — Melinda is, with 48.0% against Merlinda's 0.19%.

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 Merlinda is used

Across 1910–2025, Merlinda was most concentrated in New Mexico — about 1 in 10,000 girls, against 1 in 29,299 across all states with data. It was least common in Arizona (1 in 100,000).

110 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1New Mexico1 in 10,000
  2. 2Arizona1 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. Merlinda has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Merlinda around the world

Where Merlinda 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 Australia
    1969–1969
    #731
    in 1969

Popularity data from Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0.

Merlinda 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
#2,632
1958
Peak year
1964
22 that year
First recorded
1931
Last recorded
2009
All-time count
530
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Merlinda

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

MerindaMerrandaMerandaMeridianMerrickMerriamMercadesMeribethMeredythMerrilyMeraryMercieMerrilynMeryemMercedezMerlinaMerrynMercedeMersadesMersadieMerlinMerrillMerrinMersadies

Sibling names for Merlinda

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 Merlinda

Top names of 1964, Merlinda's peak yearThe 1960s in fullOther names that peaked in 1958Girls' names starting with M