Misty
Misty is a girl's name that peaked in 1977, when it was the 40th most popular in the United States. In 2025 it ranked 4,067th. About 81,000 Mistys are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 46.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Misty boys named Misty
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 84,891
- Estimated living today
- 81,000
- Median age today
- 46
- Peak year
- 1977
- Best rank
- 40th
- Rank in 2025
- 4,067th
- First recorded
- 1944
- Girls / boys
- 84,654 / 237
How old the living Mistys are
born that year still alive today
Of the 84,891 babies given the name since 1944, about 81,000 are alive — 95 in every hundred. Roughly 890 of them are children and 430 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 English
From the adjective misty, but sometimes also (like Missy) used as a nickname for Melissa.
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Mistys
- Misty May-Treanor (born 1977)American beach volleyball player
- Misty Copeland (born 1982)American ballet dancer
- Misty Stone (born 1986)American pornographic actress
- Misty Upham (1982–2014)American actress
- Misty Hyman (born 1979)American swimmer, Olympic gold medalist, world champion, former world record-holder
- Misty Rain (born 1969)American pornographic actress
People named Misty with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Misty is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Misty is most concentrated in Wyoming (3.6×), Oklahoma (2.7×), Arkansas (2.4×), Tennessee (2.4×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 1977
The most popular girls’ names the year Misty peaked:
Misty elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| England and Wales girls | Misty | 345 | 1,043rd |
| France girls | Misty | 5 | 3,674th |
| Scotland girls | Misty | 3 | 535th |
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.
Related names
Misty 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.