Humanverse

Meela vs Meenakshi

American parents have registered 562 Meelas since 1880, against 524 Meenakshis. But in 2025 it was Meenakshi that was commoner, 45 babies to 23.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Meela against Meenakshi, 1880 to 2025 0 15 30 45 60 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Meela Meenakshi

Each line is every baby given the name that year, girls and boys added together — the only count that means the same thing for both names. A line breaks where the name fell below five babies in a year — the point at which the SSA stops publishing it — rather than being drawn through a figure nobody published. A single published year in a gap shows as a dot.

Who was ahead

Of the 32 years in which either name was published, Meenakshi for 16 years and Meela for 16 years. The lead changed hands 4 times.

Side by side

  Meela Meenakshi
Total US births 562524
Most in one year 5245
Babies in 2025 2345
Estimated living today 560520
Median age today 910
Peak year 20132025
Best rank 3,123rd girls3,389th girls
Rank in 2025 5,410th3,389th
First recorded 20051985
Girls / boys 562 / 0524 / 0

A rank is a position within one sex’s list for one year, so the two rank rows are not subtracted from one another and the winning column is not marked on them. The living figure is a life-table estimate, not a count.

Both names abroad

Countries whose statistics office publishes both names, so the comparison can be made somewhere other than the United States.

Country Meela Meenakshi
England and Wales 12360

Every spelling a country files separately is added together, over whatever years that country publishes — which is not the same range in any two of them, so read the columns against each other and not the rows.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

Social Security Administration birth records, 1880–2025, public domain. Full histories: Meela and Meenakshi.