Miriam
The girl's name Miriam has been in the national records since 1880, with 118,190 births to its name. In 2025 it ranked 246th. About 74,000 Miriams are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 33.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Miriam boys named Miriam
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 118,190
- Estimated living today
- 74,000
- Median age today
- 33
- Peak year
- 1924
- Best rank
- 143rd
- Rank in 2025
- 246th
- First recorded
- 1880
- Girls / boys
- 117,910 / 280
How old the living Miriams are
born that year still alive today
Of the 118,190 babies given the name since 1880, about 74,000 are alive — 63 in every hundred. Roughly 20,000 of them are children and 15,000 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1992 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 Hebrew
From Hebrew מִרְיָם, possibly from Aramaic מרים (“bitter”), from a root מר (m-r) meaning "to be bitter". The meaning of this name which is the Old Testament equivalent of Mary has been debated for centuries. Some other explanations are mutiny / rebellion / disobedience from a root מרי (m-r-y).
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Miriams
- Miriam Makeba (1932–2008)South African singer and civil rights activist
- Miriam Hopkins (1902–1972)American actress
- Miriam Margolyes (born 1941)British-Australian actress
- Miriam Rodríguez Martínez (1960–2017)Mexican human rights activist
- Miriam Oremans (born 1972)Dutch tennis player
- Miriam A. Ferguson (1875–1961)American politician
- Miriam Stevenson (born 1933)American actress and model
- Miriam Blasco (born 1963)Spanish judoka and politician
People named Miriam with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Miriam is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Miriam is most concentrated in New York (2.9×), New Jersey (2.1×), Pennsylvania (1.7×), South Carolina (1.7×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 1924
The most popular girls’ names the year Miriam peaked:
Miriam elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Italy girls | Miriam | 27,786 | — |
| Spain girls | Miriam | 12,058 | 31st |
| Austria girls | Miriam | 4,550 | 32nd |
| England and Wales girls | Miriam | 4,299 | 230th |
| Norway girls | Miriam | 3,253 | 75th |
| Ireland girls | Miriam | 2,463 | 53rd |
| France girls | Miriam | 1,875 | 846th |
| Poland girls | Miriam | 1,093 birth registrations | 137th |
| Switzerland girls | Miriam | 707 | 135th |
| Belgium girls | Miriam | 467 | 320th |
| Scotland girls | Miriam | 434 | 231st |
| Northern Ireland girls | Miriam | 59 | 227th |
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.
Miriam: births by region
| Region | Country | Spelling | Births | Share of the region | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| German girls | Switzerland | Miriam | 580 | 0.047% | 101st |
| French girls | Switzerland | Miriam | 80 | 0.018% | 273rd |
| Italian girls | Switzerland | Miriam | 47 | 0.072% | 59th |
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, Miriam is most concentrated in Schwyz, where 0.07% of children were given it – 25 of them.
Miriam: rank by region
In 2025, Miriam was given 5 times or more in 2 regions of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flanders | Miriam | 350 | 15 |
| Brussels | Miriam | 194 | 6 |
In 2023, Miriam was among the 10 most common names in 1 region of Italy.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Valle d'Aosta/Vallée d'Aoste | Miriam | 8 | 1 |
In 2025, Miriam was given 2 times or more in 7 regions of Poland.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dolnośląskie | Miriam | 123 | 8 |
| Łódzkie | Miriam | 188 | 2 |
| Małopolskie | Miriam | 150 | 6 |
| Mazowieckie | Miriam | 175 | 8 |
| Opolskie | Miriam | 88 | 4 |
| Pomorskie | Miriam | 158 | 4 |
| Śląskie | Miriam | 255 | 2 |
In 2025, with the country taken in 11 areas rather than 3, Miriam appears in the lists for Province of Flemish Brabant (193rd), Brussels-Capital Region (194th) and Province of Antwerp (243rd).
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.
Miriam by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin girls | 2017–2023 | 170 | 91st |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Miriam 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.
| Country | Spelling | First forename | Any forename |
|---|---|---|---|
| the Netherlands girls | Miriam | 5,231 | 6,755 |
| Finland girls | Miriam | 335 | 1,084 |
| the Netherlands boys | Miriam | — | 99 |
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 Miriam lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 64,208 women called Miriam 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
| Province | Spelling | People | Per thousand | Place there |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ávila | Miriam | 283 | 3.539 | 61 |
| Guadalajara | Miriam | 486 | 3.458 | 58 |
| Toledo | Miriam | 1,295 | 3.449 | 63 |
| Tarragona | Miriam | 1,476 | 3.376 | 58 |
| Barcelona | Miriam | 10,141 | 3.332 | 62 |
| Valladolid | Miriam | 887 | 3.270 | 70 |
Listed in 52 of Spain's 52 provinces. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.
Related names
Miriam against another name
Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.
Try it on yourself
Source: US Social Security Administration, national and state baby-name files, 1880–2025. Counts include only births registered with the SSA, and names with fewer than five births in a year are not published. The living estimate applies SSA cohort life tables to those births; it counts people born in the United States, so it misses anyone who arrived later and anyone who has left.