Name Trends

See the popularity of names over time in the USA

How popular is “Melissa” in the USA?

Number of people named “Melissa” by birth year

This chart shows how many people named “Melissa” were born each year.

Due to changes to population growth and data collection rates over time, this isn't a good chart for understanding popularity.

Popularity of “Melissa” by birth year

This chart shows how the popularity of “Melissa” has changed over time.

Popularity is the number of people named “Melissa” born in that year divided by the total number of births for that year.

Bias in sex for “Melissa” by birth year

This chart shows how “Melissa” has been used as gendered name over time. The scale ranges from 1 (only females) to -1 (only males).

Sex is a required field in SSA's Social Security Card applications (only 2 options). Most applications are filed around a person's time of birth.

The raw data

This table shows the data used in the above charts.

Year Count Proportion Females Males Bias toward female
1880 33 0.000163785 33 100%
1881 40 0.000207587 40 100%
1882 41 0.000185074 41 100%
1883 42 0.000193597 42 100%
1884 48 0.000197157 48 100%
1885 45 0.000186835 45 100%
1886 58 0.000227169 58 100%
1887 34 0.000137433 34 100%
1888 40 0.000133568 40 100%
1889 46 0.000159199 46 100%
1890 42 0.000139349 42 100%
1891 30 0.00010465 30 100%
1892 34 0.000101683 34 100%
1893 53 0.000162965 53 100%
1894 52 0.000153533 52 100%
1895 41 0.000116802 41 100%
1896 30 0.00008392 30 100%
1897 35 0.000100877 35 100%
1898 35 0.000091754 35 100%
1899 47 0.000138548 47 100%
1900 40 0.000088837 40 100%
1901 34 0.000098319 34 100%
1902 40 0.000103431 40 100%
1903 35 0.000091815 35 100%
1904 24 0.000059482 24 100%
1905 30 0.000070767 30 100%
1906 22 0.000051348 22 100%
1907 38 0.000081652 38 100%
1908 27 0.000055254 27 100%
1909 33 0.000064551 33 100%
1910 47 0.000079565 47 100%
1911 31 0.000048116 31 100%
1912 42 0.000042508 42 100%
1913 47 0.000041333 47 100%
1914 52 0.000036714 52 100%
1915 67 0.000036563 67 100%
1916 64 0.000033085 64 100%
1917 54 0.000026909 54 100%
1918 63 0.000029017 63 100%
1919 49 0.00002322 49 100%
1920 59 0.000026076 59 100%
1921 66 0.000028272 66 100%
1922 68 0.000029705 68 100%
1923 50 0.000021716 50 100%
1924 53 0.000022254 53 100%
1925 55 0.000023572 55 100%
1926 46 0.000020036 46 100%
1927 44 0.000018971 44 100%
1928 43 0.000019019 43 100%
1929 42 0.000019159 42 100%
1930 57 0.000025638 57 100%
1931 43 0.000020434 43 100%
1932 62 0.000029366 62 100%
1933 51 0.000025508 51 100%
1934 43 0.000020705 43 100%
1935 63 0.000030146 63 100%
1936 56 0.000026955 56 100%
1937 90 0.000042241 90 100%
1938 85 0.000038417 85 100%
1939 116 0.000052646 116 100%
1940 95 0.000041258 95 100%
1941 141 0.000057874 141 100%
1942 154 0.000056375 154 100%
1943 189 0.000066962 189 100%
1944 177 0.000065799 177 100%
1945 186 0.000070113 186 100%
1946 198 0.000061967 198 100%
1947 319 0.000088556 319 100%
1948 600 0.000173788 600 100%
1949 779 0.000223548 779 100%
1950 980 0.000279728 980 100%
1951 1129 0.00030648 1129 100%
1952 1442 0.00037967 1442 100%
1953 2006 0.000520551 2006 100%
1954 2062 0.000517998 2062 100%
1955 2416 0.000601733 2416 100%
1956 2535 0.000614831 2526 9 99%
1957 2781 0.00066175 2781 100%
1958 3335 0.000806965 3324 11 99%
1959 3637 0.000874968 3626 11 99%
1960 4423 0.001064682 4414 9 100%
1961 4910 0.001185725 4901 9 100%
1962 6317 0.001565533 6307 10 100%
1963 7345 0.001855459 7320 25 99%
1964 8335 0.002143956 8317 18 100%
1965 10590 0.002920876 10564 26 100%
1966 14290 0.004111484 14253 37 99%
1967 18421 0.005425904 18378 43 100%
1968 21788 0.006448907 21727 61 99%
1969 23091 0.006643657 23022 69 99%
1970 23806 0.006600257 23736 70 99%
1971 23945 0.006976001 23870 75 99%
1972 22584 0.007184763 22500 84 99%
1973 22557 0.007476333 22480 77 99%
1974 22251 0.007318912 22165 86 99%
1975 24261 0.008034162 24169 92 99%
1976 25183 0.008298529 25095 88 99%
1977 26972 0.008490564 26880 92 99%
1978 28429 0.008956298 28328 101 99%
1979 34180 0.010272553 34051 129 99%
1980 31775 0.009223944 31637 138 99%
1981 28102 0.008122932 28005 97 99%
1982 25976 0.007404409 25867 109 99%
1983 23575 0.006806816 23474 101 99%
1984 21978 0.006299703 21895 83 99%
1985 20049 0.005617518 19964 85 99%
1986 17752 0.004990791 17668 84 99%
1987 17748 0.004922563 17674 74 99%
1988 16616 0.004497181 16543 73 99%
1989 15282 0.003975233 15205 77 99%
1990 14046 0.003554055 13997 49 99%
1991 13374 0.003433643 13347 27 100%
1992 11749 0.003058868 11710 39 99%
1993 10256 0.002720437 10224 32 99%
1994 8821 0.002372923 8796 25 99%
1995 7899 0.002157085 7878 21 99%
1996 7185 0.001970157 7170 15 100%
1997 6699 0.001847731 6679 20 99%
1998 5373 0.001460856 5354 19 99%
1999 4848 0.001312535 4830 18 99%
2000 4539 0.001200915 4531 8 100%
2001 4157 0.001110579 4145 12 99%
2002 3777 0.001010489 3769 8 100%
2003 3509 0.000922994 3501 8 100%
2004 3345 0.000875572 3338 7 100%
2005 3095 0.000805116 3084 11 99%
2006 2898 0.000732685 2893 5 100%
2007 2510 0.000628026 2504 6 100%
2008 2523 0.000642078 2516 7 99%
2009 2337 0.000611969 2337 100%
2010 1951 0.000528093 1951 100%
2011 1709 0.000467411 1709 100%
2012 1771 0.000484447 1771 100%
2013 1592 0.000436924 1592 100%
2014 1508 0.000407107 1508 100%
2015 1288 0.00034826 1283 5 99%
2016 1236 0.000337165 1236 100%
2017 1169 0.000327198 1169 100%
2018 1117 0.000318075 1117 100%
2019 933 0.0002692 933 100%
2020 887 0.000266048 887 100%
2021 834 0.000246767 834 100%
2022 822 0.000244505 822 100%