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Missy

#5,849 in 2025Girls' name

Bee, honey, or honeybee, through Melissa

Missy has been given to 5,776 babies in the U.S. since 1943. In 2025 it ranked #5,849 of 17,293 girls’ names in use. Its peak year was 1967, with 303 recorded.

Babies named Missy, 2025

1 in 158,000

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Missy: meaning, origin, and history

Bee, honey, or honeybee, through Melissa

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Missy means

Missy belongs to the name family reached through Missy → Melissa. Its meaning is “bee, honey, or honeybee”.

Origin, language, and formation

Missy is used in English.

Related names and everyday forms

Related names include Melissa.

Pronunciation and spelling

In English, Missy is pronounced /ˈmɪs.i/.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 5,776 girls were recorded with the name Missy between 1943 and 2025. Its highest annual count was 303 in 1967; its best national rank was #541 in 1967.

Over 5 years its rank rose, from #7,833 in 2020 to #5,849 in 2025. Over 10 years its rank rose, from #11,556 in 2015 to #5,849 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 Missy?

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

Among all babies, 2025
1 in 158,000
21 of 3,315,165 births
Among girls only
1 in 76,500
<0.01% of girls
Rank, 2025
#5,849
of 17,293 girls’ names in use
Coin-flip room size
109,425 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Missy 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 109,425 children born in 2025 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Missy. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Missys were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Missy was born before 1969 — so the typical Missy is around 56 today.

Median birth year
1969
About 56 years old
Biggest decade
1960s
40.9% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
5.9%
Mostly a past generation
Recorded since 1950
5,722
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1960s — 40.9% of all recorded uses (2,362).

Is Missy 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
+475
Places climbed
Rank vs 5 years ago
+1,984
Places climbed
Rank vs 10 years ago
+5,707
Places climbed
Births vs 10 years ago
2.33×
More babies than then
Share of its own peak
6.9%
Peak was 1967 (303)
Years since peak
58
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
34.1% average annual change
Best rank ever
#541
1967

Spellings of Missy

Missy is not the most common spelling — Misty is, with 43.4% against Missy's 3.0%.

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 Missy is used

Across 1910–2025, Missy was most concentrated in Kentucky — about 1 in 16,667 girls, against 1 in 43,823 across all states with data. It was least common in Oregon (1 in —).

06 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1Kentucky1 in 16,667
  2. 2Tennessee1 in 16,667
  3. 3Missouri1 in 20,000
  4. 4Ohio1 in 20,000
  5. 5Indiana1 in 25,000
  6. 6Texas1 in 25,000
  7. 7Arkansas1 in 33,333
  8. 8Georgia1 in 33,333

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

Missy around the world

Where Missy 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
    1999–2025
    #2,605
    in 2025
  • Scotland
    2009–2014
    #802
    in 2014
  • France
    2004–2025
    #1,830
    in 2025
  • Canada
    2019–2023
    #2,973
    in 2023
  • South Australia
    2005–2012
    #871
    in 2012

Popularity data from Office for National Statistics, National Records of Scotland, Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques, Statistics Canada and Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). ONS, NRS data under Open Government Licence v3.0. INSEE data under Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0. StatCan data under Statistics Canada Open Licence. CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0.

Notable people named Missy

People whose public names include Missy, 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.

Missy in other languages

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

Melissa

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

Missy by the numbers

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

As a girl's name

Rank in 2025
#5,849
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
Up 1,984
Best rank ever
#541
1967
Peak year
1967
303 that year
First recorded
1943
Last recorded
2025
All-time count
5,776
Count in 2025
21

Names similar to Missy

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

MishaMistiMischaJessyMistyMishkaMisaPessyMistieKrissyZissyChrissyMiskRossyMissouriCassyMishelMiskiMisakiMishelleMissieMishellMishalMishika

Names with a curve like Missy

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

ShelliJuliTamelaDedraBarbieMechelleDoriLoriannTonjaMachelleVelvetRenea

Sibling names for Missy

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 Missy

Top names of 1967, Missy's peak yearThe 1960s in fullOther names that peaked in 1967Girls' names starting with M