Humanverse

Meela vs Meera

American parents have registered 4,259 Meeras since 1880, against 562 Meelas. Meera is still ahead, with 246 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Meela against Meera, 1880 to 2025 0 80 160 240 320 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Meela Meera

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

Meera has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1965 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 2011, when Meela had 36 and Meera had 80.

Side by side

  Meela Meera
Total US births 5624,259
Most in one year 52246
Babies in 2025 23246
Estimated living today 5604,200
Median age today 910
Peak year 20132025
Best rank 3,123rd girls1,016th girls
Rank in 2025 5,410th1,016th
First recorded 20051965
Girls / boys 562 / 04,259 / 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 Meera
England and Wales 123815

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 Meera.