Humanverse

Meranda vs Mervin

American parents have registered 12,360 Mervins since 1880, against 2,901 Merandas. Mervin is still ahead, with 58 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Meranda Mervin

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 145 years in which either name was published, Mervin for 122 years and Meranda for 23 years. The lead changed hands 12 times.

8 shorter spells of a year or two are folded into the spans above rather than listed separately.

Side by side

  Meranda Mervin
Total US births 2,90112,360
Most in one year 186257
Babies in 2025 under 558
Estimated living today 2,8005,400
Median age today 3251
Peak year 19941920
Best rank 994th girls377th boys
Rank in 2025 unranked2,363rd
First recorded 19571880
Girls / boys 2,901 / 038 / 12,322

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 Mervins alive today are over 51; half the Merandas are over 32. That is 19 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Where each one is strongest

How much commoner the name is in that state than it is nationally, from births recorded since 1910.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

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