Humanverse

Meika vs Meila

American parents have registered 636 Meilas since 1880, against 613 Meikas. Meila is still ahead, with 39 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Meika Meila

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 51 years in which either name was published, Meika for 36 years and Meila for 15 years. The lead changed hands 3 times.

Side by side

  Meika Meila
Total US births 613636
Most in one year 2853
Babies in 2025 839
Estimated living today 600630
Median age today 188
Peak year 20102018
Best rank 4,974th girls3,050th girls
Rank in 2025 10,917th3,780th
First recorded 19691998
Girls / boys 613 / 0636 / 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.

Which name is older

Half of the Meikas alive today are over 18; half the Meilas are over 8. That is 10 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Both names abroad

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

Country Meika Meila
England and Wales 39200
France 1030

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: Meika and Meila.