Merrillyn
Girls' nameMeaning not yet documented
Merrillyn has been given to 77 babies in the U.S. since 1930. 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 1938, with 10 recorded.
Babies named Merrillyn, 1949
1 in 697,000
Merrillyn over time, 1880–2025
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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.
How common is Merrillyn?
Merrillyn had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 1949, the last year it was published.
- Among all babies, 1949
- 1 in 697,000
- 5 of 3,484,085 births
- Among girls only
- 1 in 342,000
- <0.01% of girls
- Rank, 1949
- Unranked
- Fewer than 5 uses
- Coin-flip room size
- 482,998 kids
- Even odds of a second one
Where Merrillyn sits on the popularity scale
Chance at least one other child shares the name
If the other children were drawn at random from the 1949 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.
Put another way: gather 482,998 children born in 1949 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Merrillyn. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.
When Merrillyns were born
Half of everyone ever recorded as Merrillyn was born before 1939 — so the typical Merrillyn is around 86 today.
- Biggest decade
- 1930s
- 50.6% of all use
- Born in the last 25 years
- 100.0%
- A modern name
- Recorded since 1950
- 0
- People you could plausibly meet
1930s — 50.6% of all recorded uses (39).
Is Merrillyn 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 1938 (10)
- Years since peak
- 87
- Years
- Year-to-year steadiness
- Shifting
- 20.9% average annual change
Spellings of Merrillyn
Merrillyn is not the most common spelling — Merilyn is, with 27.4% against Merrillyn's 0.91%.
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.
Merrillyn around the world
Where Merrillyn 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 Australia1950–1950#436in 1950
Popularity data from Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0.
Merrillyn by the numbers
The raw record for each sex the name is used for.
Names similar to Merrillyn
Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.
Sibling names for Merrillyn
Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.