Humanverse

Meredith vs Meredyth

American parents have registered 82,044 Merediths since 1880, against 605 Meredyths. Meredith is still ahead, with 656 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Meredith against Meredyth, 1880 to 2025 0 600 1.2k 1.8k 2.4k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Meredith Meredyth

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

Meredith has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1883 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 1915, when Meredith had 136 and Meredyth had 6.

Side by side

  Meredith Meredyth
Total US births 82,044605
Most in one year 2,08718
Babies in 2025 656under 5
Estimated living today 73,000510
Median age today 3939
Peak year 19801974
Best rank 140th girls3,558th girls
Rank in 2025 469thunranked
First recorded 18831915
Girls / boys 77,787 / 4,257605 / 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 Meredith Meredyth
England and Wales 1,5783
France 1,1055 Mérédyth

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: Meredith and Meredyth.