Melissa

Popularity, 1880–2025

girls named Melissa boys named Melissa

By the numbers

Total US births

762,623

Estimated living today

718,000

Median age today

46

Peak year

1979

Best rank

2nd

Rank in 2025

419th

First recorded

1880

Girls / boys

760,128 / 2,495

How old the living Melissas are

born that year still alive today

Of the 762,623 babies given the name since 1880, about 718,000 are alive — 94 in every hundred. Roughly 24,000 of them are children and 24,000 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1979 and half after.

An estimate, not a count. SSA births aged forward through SSA cohort life tables, which know nothing about who left the country or arrived in it — so for a name that mostly came to America rather than being born in it, this is a floor rather than a figure. Where you fall among living Americans.

Where the name comes from

Origin Ancient Greek

From Ancient Greek μέλισσα (“bee, honey, or honeybee”). In Ireland it is sometimes used as a feminine form of the Gaelic male name Maol Íosa.

Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Notable Melissas

• Melissa McCarthy (born 1970)American actress and comedian
• Melissa Leo (born 1960)American actress
• Melissa Joan Hart (born 1976)American actress
• Melissa Benoist (born 1988)American actress and singer
• Melissa Rauch (born 1980)American actress
• Melissa George (born 1976)Australian actress
• Melissa McBride (born 1965)American actress
• Melissa Gilbert (born 1964)American actress

People named Melissa with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).

Where Melissa is most common

• CA86,923
• TX58,133
• NY56,858
• PA39,033
• OH38,978
• IL35,078
• FL29,848
• MI29,091
• NJ23,844
• IN19,898

Relative to how many babies each state records, Melissa is most concentrated in Rhode Island (1.4×), New Hampshire (1.4×), Vermont (1.3×), Alaska (1.3×).

Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.

Names of 1979

The most popular girls’ names the year Melissa peaked:

• Jennifer
• Melissa
• Amanda
• Jessica
• Amy
• Sarah

All the names of 1979

Melissa elsewhere

Counts come from each country's own records and are not comparable with the US figures above, which cover different years and a different definition of a recorded name. Where a country writes the name several ways, the spellings are added together and the most common is shown. A row marked name registrations is counting something else: Portugal ranks each of a child's two given names separately, so a girl registered Maria Leonor is in both the Maria row and the Leonor row, and that figure is not a number of children.

Melissa: births by region

Parts of a country counted above, not extra births. The share is what makes the regions comparable: they differ in size by a factor of three hundred.

By canton, Melissa is most concentrated in Ticino, where 0.48% of children were given it – 302 of them.

Melissa: rank by region

In 2025, Melissa was given 5 times or more in 2 regions of Belgium.

In 2023, Melissa was among the 10 most common names in 1 region of Italy.

In 2025, Melissa was given 2 times or more in 10 regions of Poland.

In 2025, with the country taken in 11 areas rather than 3, Melissa appears in the lists for Province of Flemish Brabant (108th), Brussels-Capital Region (159th), Province of East Flanders (214th) and Province of Antwerp (276th).

Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children, Italy after 10 names, Poland below 2 children – and published nothing after. So a region missing here is one where the name fell outside what was published, not one where it went unused. Places are shared where names tie, and the further down a list a place is, the more names can share it.

Melissa by city

One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.

Melissa among the living

How many people each country's register counts under the name, rather than how many were given it in any one year. Each register was read on one date, and they are not the same date.

A count of people on a register – the Netherlands on 1 January 2018, Finland on 4 August 2026 – and not of births, so it cannot be compared with the figures above. Names with very few bearers are withheld, and a dash in the first-forename column means the register would not say rather than that nobody goes by it.

Where Melissa lives in Spain

Not a count of births but of people: 4,131 women called Melissa were living in Spain on 1 January 2025, of every age, born in any year. Where they live is not spread evenly.

Women: the provinces where it is densest

Listed in 52 of Spain's 52 provinces. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.

Related names

• Melanie
• Melvin
• Melinda
• Melody
• Melba
• Melina
• Melisa
• Melany
• Melva
• Melodie
• Melvina
• Melani

Melissa against another name

Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.

• Melissa vs Melanie
• Melissa vs Melvin
• Melissa vs Melinda
• Melissa vs Melody
• Melissa vs Melba
• Melissa vs Melina

Compare Melissa with a name of your own