Melanie
About 263,254 American babies have been named Melanie since 1886, most of them around 1972. In 2025 it ranked 142nd. About 247,000 Melanies are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 40.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Melanie boys named Melanie
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 263,254
- Estimated living today
- 247,000
- Median age today
- 40
- Peak year
- 1972
- Best rank
- 42nd
- Rank in 2025
- 142nd
- First recorded
- 1886
- Girls / boys
- 262,640 / 614
How old the living Melanies are
born that year still alive today
Of the 263,254 babies given the name since 1886, about 247,000 are alive — 94 in every hundred. Roughly 53,000 of them are children and 22,000 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1985 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 French Mélanie, from Latin Melania, the name of two Roman fifth century saints, from Ancient Greek μέλας (“black, dark”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Melanies
- Melanie Griffith (born 1957)American actress
- Mélanie Laurent (born 1983)French actress, model, director and writer
- Melanie Klein (1882–1960)British Austrian born psychoanalyst
- Melanie Martinez (born 1995)Mexican-American singer-songwriter
- Melanie C (born 1974)British pop singer
- Melanie Brown (born 1975)British singer and television personality
- Melanie (1947–2024)American musician
- Melanie Lynskey (born 1977)New Zealand actress
People named Melanie with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Melanie is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Melanie is most concentrated in Nevada (1.9×), Utah (1.7×), Hawaii (1.4×), California (1.4×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 1972
The most popular girls’ names the year Melanie peaked:
Melanie elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| France girls | Mélanie +1 spelling | 133,835 | 10th |
| Austria girls | Melanie | 16,429 | 3rd |
| New Zealand girls | Melanie | 4,476 | 8th |
| Switzerland girls | Melanie +1 spelling | 2,593 | 15th |
| England and Wales girls | Melanie | 2,488 | 239th |
| Belgium girls | Mélanie +1 spelling | 2,015 | 44th |
| Scotland girls | Melanie | 1,782 | 61st |
| Ireland girls | Melanie | 1,235 | 141st |
| Italy girls | Melanie | 1,012 | — |
| Norway girls | Melanie | 328 | 279th |
| Poland girls | Melanie +1 spelling | 268 birth registrations | 242nd |
| France boys | Mélanie | 90 | 1,457th |
| Northern Ireland girls | Melanie | 76 | 188th |
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.
Melanie: births by region
| Region | Country | Spelling | Births | Share of the region | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| German girls | Switzerland | Melanie | 1,867 | 0.150% | 16th |
| German girls | Switzerland | Mélanie | 43 | 0.003% | 504th |
| French girls | Switzerland | Mélanie | 428 | 0.098% | 32nd |
| French girls | Switzerland | Melanie | 133 | 0.031% | 44th |
| Italian girls | Switzerland | Melanie | 101 | 0.155% | 25th |
| Italian girls | Switzerland | Mélanie | 13 | 0.020% | 85th |
| Romansh girls | Switzerland | Melanie | 8 | 0.215% | 15th |
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, Melanie is most concentrated in Appenzell Ausserrhoden, where 0.24% of children were given it – 28 of them.
Melanie: rank by region
In 2025, Melanie was given 5 times or more in 1 region of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flanders | Melanie | 531 | 9 |
In 2024, Melanie was among the 10 most common names in 1 region of Italy.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Valle d'Aosta/Vallée d'Aoste | Melanie | 8 | 1 |
In 2024, Melanie was given 2 times or more in 1 region of Poland.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Śląskie | Melanie | 197 | 4 |
In 2025, with the country taken in 11 areas rather than 3, Melanie appears in the lists for Province of Antwerp (326th).
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.
Melanie by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin girls | 2017–2023 | 4 | 548th |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Melanie 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 | Melanie | 9,371 | 11,802 |
| Finland girls | Melanie +1 spelling | 169 | 312 |
| the Netherlands boys | Melanie | — | 127 |
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 Melanie lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 3,437 women called Melanie 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Balears, Illes | Melanie | 214 | 0.341 | 307 |
| Palmas, Las | Melanie | 195 | 0.331 | 371 |
| Santa Cruz de Tenerife | Melanie | 162 | 0.292 | 401 |
| Girona | Melanie | 89 | 0.215 | 472 |
| Almería | Melanie | 80 | 0.212 | 459 |
| Alicante/Alacant | Melanie | 205 | 0.199 | 490 |
Listed in 46 of Spain's 52 provinces. In the other 6 it is either held by fewer than 5 people – the point below which the source withholds a name – or it fell past the 5,000 names the source will print for one province. Neither means nobody there is called it. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.
Related names
Melanie 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.