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Merrilyn

Girls' name

Variant of Marilyn

Merrilyn has been given to 751 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 1944, with 40 recorded.

Babies named Merrilyn, 1973

1 in 503,000

Merrilyn over time, 1880–2025

Girls
01020304018801900192019401960198020002020

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Merrilyn: meaning, origin, and history

Variant of Marilyn

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Merrilyn means

Merrilyn is a variant of Marilyn.

Documented naming usage and pronunciation

Merrilyn is used in English (Rare).

Related names and everyday forms

Related names include Marilyn.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 751 girls were recorded with the name Merrilyn between 1923 and 1973. Its highest annual count was 40 in 1944; its best national rank was #1,265 in 1944.

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.

How common is Merrilyn?

Merrilyn had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 1973, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 1973
1 in 503,000
6 of 3,016,706 births
Among girls only
1 in 243,000
<0.01% of girls
Rank, 1973
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
348,505 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Merrilyn 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 1973 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 348,505 children born in 1973 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Merrilyn. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Merrilyns were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Merrilyn was born before 1944 — so the typical Merrilyn is around 81 today.

Median birth year
1944
About 81 years old
Biggest decade
1940s
38.7% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
33.7%
Spread across generations
Recorded since 1950
222
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1940s — 38.7% of all recorded uses (291).

Is Merrilyn 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 1944 (40)
Years since peak
81
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
31.6% average annual change
Best rank ever
#1,265
1944

Spellings of Merrilyn

Merrilyn is not the most common spelling — Marilyn is, with 95.1% against Merrilyn'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 Merrilyn is used

Across 1910–2025, Merrilyn was most concentrated in California — about 1 in — girls, against 1 in 1,497,675 across all states with data. It was least common in Illinois (1 in —).

00 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1California1 in —
  2. 2Illinois1 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. Merrilyn has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Merrilyn around the world

Where Merrilyn 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
    1944–1984
    #661
    in 1984

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

Merrilyn 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
#1,265
1944
Peak year
1944
40 that year
First recorded
1923
Last recorded
1973
All-time count
751
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Merrilyn

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

MerlynMerelynMerilynMerrillynMeridianMerrilyMerrickMaddelynNaidelynBrecklynScottlynChrislynMattilynCourtlynMagdalynMercedezMeredythMercadesRiverlynMerriamJesselynMerlindaKendalynJennalyn

Sibling names for Merrilyn

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 Merrilyn

Top names of 1944, Merrilyn's peak yearThe 1940s in fullOther names that peaked in 1944Girls' names starting with M