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Merry

#10,630 in 2025Girls' name

Multiple documented origins; meaning depends on tradition

Merry has been given to 10,369 babies in the U.S. since 1898. In 2025 it ranked #10,630 of 17,293 girls’ names in use. Its peak year was 1954, with 355 recorded.

Babies named Merry, 2025

1 in 368,000

Merry over time, 1880–2025

Girls
010020030040018801900192019401960198020002020

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Merry: meaning, origin, and history

Multiple documented origins; meaning depends on tradition

English

What Merry means

Merry has more than one naming route in the cited origin entries: distinct naming traditions.

The naming story behind Merry

Merry is documented as an English vocabulary word adopted as a personal name. Its immediate reference is the word merry; the cited entry discusses the word history separately from its use as a given name.

Origin, language, and formation

Merry is used in English and Tagalog. Its origins include English.

Related names and everyday forms

Related names include Mercy and Meredith.

Pronunciation and spelling

In Tagalog, Merry is pronounced /ˈmeɾi/.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 10,369 girls were recorded with the name Merry between 1898 and 2025. Its highest annual count was 355 in 1954; its best national rank was #456 in 1948.

Over 5 years its rank fell, from #6,822 in 2020 to #10,630 in 2025. Over 10 years its rank fell, from #5,604 in 2015 to #10,630 in 2025.

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 Merry?

Everything below is computed from the 2025 data — the most recent year available.

Among all babies, 2025
1 in 368,000
9 of 3,315,165 births
Among girls only
1 in 179,000
<0.01% of girls
Rank, 2025
#10,630
of 17,293 girls’ names in use
Coin-flip room size
255,323 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Merry 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 2025 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 255,323 children born in 2025 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Merry. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Merrys were born

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

Median birth year
1954
About 71 years old
Biggest decade
1950s
28.7% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
4.5%
Mostly a past generation
Recorded since 1950
6,723
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1950s — 28.7% of all recorded uses (2,972).

Is Merry 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
−3,488
Places dropped
Rank vs 5 years ago
−3,808
Places dropped
Rank vs 10 years ago
−5,026
Places dropped
Births vs 10 years ago
0.38×
Fewer babies than then
Share of its own peak
2.5%
Peak was 1954 (355)
Years since peak
71
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
26.2% average annual change
Best rank ever
#456
1948

Spellings of Merry

Merry is not the most common spelling — Mary is, with 83.7% against Merry's 0.21%.

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 Merry is used

Across 1910–2025, Merry was most concentrated in Michigan — about 1 in 11,111 girls, against 1 in 24,685 across all states with data. It was least common in Utah (1 in —).

09 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1Michigan1 in 11,111
  2. 2Minnesota1 in 12,500
  3. 3Washington1 in 12,500
  4. 4Wisconsin1 in 12,500
  5. 5Iowa1 in 14,286
  6. 6Illinois1 in 14,286
  7. 7California1 in 20,000
  8. 8Georgia1 in 20,000

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. Merry has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Merry around the world

Where Merry 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
    2005–2024
    #5,892
    in 2024
  • France
    1945–2024
    #5,292
    in 2024
  • Canada
    2020–2020
    #3,134
    in 2020

Popularity data from Office for National Statistics, Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques and Statistics Canada. ONS data under Open Government Licence v3.0. INSEE data under Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0. StatCan data under Statistics Canada Open Licence.

Notable people named Merry

People whose public names include Merry, backed by Wikidata given-name records and ordered by linked Wikimedia pages. The name may be a middle name.

People data from Wikidata (CC0). Fame is measured, not judged — the order reflects how widely each person is documented, not the U.S. birth records popularity this page is otherwise about.

Merry in other languages

Cross-language forms and variants of Merry. Linked forms have their own page here.

MerriMeredithMeriçMédéric

Variant forms from Wikidata (CC0). Most are used mainly outside the United States; U.S. birth records statistics cover US usage only.

Merry by the numbers

The raw record for each sex the name is used for.

As a girl's name

Rank in 2025
#10,630
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
Down 3,808
Best rank ever
#456
1948
Peak year
1954
355 that year
First recorded
1898
Last recorded
2025
All-time count
10,369
Count in 2025
9

Names similar to Merry

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

MercyMerleMerylCherryMeriPerryMerciMerriMerlynMeridaMerrittMernaMerariKerryGerryMarryJerryMerrillMerlinMerrieMercedezTerryMeritMeryem

Names with a curve like Merry

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

DinahMariannMaryanneDiannRoseannMarileeMaryellenBonnyAletaSuzanLynNoreen

Sibling names for Merry

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 Merry

Top names of 1954, Merry's peak yearThe 1950s in fullOther names that peaked in 1948Girls' names starting with M