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Merrilee

Girls' name

Literal meaning not recorded

Merrilee has been given to 1,871 babies in the U.S. since 1923. 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 1942, with 78 recorded.

Babies named Merrilee, 2023

1 in 663,000

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Merrilee: meaning, origin, and history

Literal meaning not recorded

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Merrilee means

Merrilee is a given name.

Origin, language, and formation

Merrilee is used in English.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 1,871 girls were recorded with the name Merrilee between 1923 and 2023. Its highest annual count was 78 in 1942; its best national rank was #883 in 1942.

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 Merrilee?

Merrilee had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 2023, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 2023
1 in 663,000
5 of 3,314,783 births
Among girls only
1 in 321,000
<0.01% of girls
Rank, 2023
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
459,528 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Merrilee 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 2023 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 459,528 children born in 2023 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Merrilee. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Merrilees were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Merrilee was born before 1954 — so the typical Merrilee is around 71 today.

Median birth year
1954
About 71 years old
Biggest decade
1950s
30.9% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
1.1%
Mostly a past generation
Recorded since 1950
1,215
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1950s — 30.9% of all recorded uses (578).

Is Merrilee 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 1942 (78)
Years since peak
83
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
30.0% average annual change
Best rank ever
#883
1942

Spellings of Merrilee

Merrilee is not the most common spelling — Marilee is, with 43.9% against Merrilee's 11.0%.

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 Merrilee is used

Across 1910–2025, Merrilee was most concentrated in Washington — about 1 in 33,333 girls, against 1 in 137,681 across all states with data. It was least common in Wisconsin (1 in —).

03 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1Washington1 in 33,333
  2. 2Utah1 in 50,000
  3. 3California1 in 100,000
  4. 4Illinois1 in 100,000
  5. 5Michigan1 in 100,000
  6. 6Minnesota1 in 100,000
  7. 7Florida1 in —
  8. 8Iowa1 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. Merrilee has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Merrilee around the world

Where Merrilee 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
    1949–1980
    #634
    in 1980

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

Merrilee 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
#883
1942
Peak year
1942
78 that year
First recorded
1923
Last recorded
2023
All-time count
1,871
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Merrilee

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

MerileeMercedezMerrillEmberleeMerrittBrynnleeMeridethMerrilyAmberleeMckinleeLauraleeBeverleeMakayleeMeridianBlakeleeMeridithMerlynMeridaMerariMerrickLoraleeGreenleeKenzleeKynslee

Sibling names for Merrilee

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 Merrilee

Top names of 1942, Merrilee's peak yearThe 1940s in fullOther names that peaked in 1942Girls' names starting with M