Humanverse

Meika vs Meir

American parents have registered 4,612 Meirs since 1880, against 613 Meikas. Meir is still ahead, with 248 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Meika Meir

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 66 years in which either name was published, Meir for 64 years and Meika for 2 years. The lead changed hands 4 times.

Side by side

  Meika Meir
Total US births 6134,612
Most in one year 28258
Babies in 2025 8248
Estimated living today 6004,500
Median age today 1811
Peak year 20102024
Best rank 4,974th girls907th boys
Rank in 2025 10,917th948th
First recorded 19691951
Girls / boys 613 / 00 / 4,612

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 Meirs are over 11. That is 7 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 Meir
France 10380
England and Wales 39347

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 Meir.