Humanverse

Meka vs Mekhai

American parents have registered 623 Mekas since 1880, against 538 Mekhais. But in 2025 it was Mekhai that was commoner, 14 babies to fewer than five.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Meka against Mekhai, 1880 to 2025 0 10 20 30 40 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Meka Mekhai

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 57 years in which either name was published, Meka for 31 years and Mekhai for 26 years. The lead changed hands once.

Side by side

  Meka Mekhai
Total US births 623538
Most in one year 3438
Babies in 2025 under 514
Estimated living today 600530
Median age today 3813
Peak year 19722017
Best rank 2,222nd girls3,071st boys
Rank in 2025 unranked6,143rd
First recorded 19671998
Girls / boys 623 / 00 / 538

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 Mekas alive today are over 38; half the Mekhais are over 13. That is 25 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 Meka Mekhai
England and Wales 912

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: Meka and Mekhai.