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Merna

Girls' name

Literal meaning not recorded

Merna has been given to 2,461 babies in the U.S. since 1895. 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 1930, with 79 recorded.

Babies named Merna, 2024

1 in 418,000

Merna over time, 1880–2025

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Merna: meaning, origin, and history

Literal meaning not recorded

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Merna means

Merna is a given name.

Origin, language, and formation

Merna is used in English.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 2,461 girls were recorded with the name Merna between 1895 and 2024. Its highest annual count was 79 in 1930; its best national rank was #799 in 1930.

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 Merna?

Merna had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 2024, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 2024
1 in 418,000
8 of 3,342,801 births
Among girls only
1 in 203,000
<0.01% of girls
Rank, 2024
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
289,633 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Merna 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 2024 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 289,633 children born in 2024 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Merna. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Mernas were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Merna was born before 1934 — so the typical Merna is around 91 today.

Median birth year
1934
About 91 years old
Biggest decade
1930s
23.6% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
9.2%
Mostly a past generation
Recorded since 1950
609
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1930s — 23.6% of all recorded uses (582).

Is Merna 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 1930 (79)
Years since peak
95
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
28.7% average annual change
Best rank ever
#799
1930

Spellings of Merna

Merna is not the most common spelling — Maria is, with 21.8% against Merna's 0.09%.

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 Merna is used

Across 1910–2025, Merna was most concentrated in Nebraska — about 1 in 5,556 girls, against 1 in 147,197 across all states with data. It was least common in Wisconsin (1 in —).

018 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1Nebraska1 in 5,556
  2. 2Iowa1 in 20,000
  3. 3Kansas1 in 50,000
  4. 4Illinois1 in 100,000
  5. 5California1 in —
  6. 6Indiana1 in —
  7. 7Louisiana1 in —
  8. 8Michigan1 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. Merna has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Merna around the world

Where Merna 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
    2014–2022
    #5,670
    in 2022
  • Canada
    1999–2004
    #2,752
    in 2004
  • South Australia
    1963–1963
    #644
    in 1963

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

Merna 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
#799
1930
Peak year
1930
79 that year
First recorded
1895
Last recorded
2024
All-time count
2,461
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Merna

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

MerylMeriMerciMerlynMeridaMerariAarnaMerryMercyMerriMerrillMerlinMerrittMirnaMerleMeritMerrieMeryemMeraMerynMeraryMertieMeryMercie

Names with a curve like Merna

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

InellErleneArdellCletaEleaseMardellAlmetaBernardineRozellaRuthaEloisRomaine

Sibling names for Merna

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 Merna

Top names of 1930, Merna's peak yearThe 1930s in fullOther names that peaked in 1930Girls' names starting with M