Meredith
Meredith is a girl's name that peaked in 1980, when it was the 140th most popular in the United States. In 2025 it ranked 469th. About 73,000 Merediths are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 39.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Meredith boys named Meredith
Girls and boys called Meredith
years more girls than boys years more boys than girls
Meredith crossed from boys to girls in 1923, and has stayed there for 103 of the years counted since. At its furthest it was 100% girls, which is roughly where it still is.
The girls’ share of each year’s babies of the name, in the 118 years in which at least 25 babies got it. The line touches the middle more often than there are crossings marked: a year or two on the other side is not a name changing hands, and only a move that holds for 5 counted years and reaches 60/40 is recorded as one. All 581 names that changed sex.
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 82,044
- Estimated living today
- 73,000
- Median age today
- 39
- Peak year
- 1980
- Best rank
- 140th
- Rank in 2025
- 469th
- First recorded
- 1883
- Girls / boys
- 77,787 / 4,257
How old the living Merediths are
born that year still alive today
Of the 82,044 babies given the name since 1883, about 73,000 are alive — 89 in every hundred. Roughly 9,900 of them are children and 5,400 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1986 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 Welsh
From Welsh Maredudd (“great lord”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Merediths
- Wendell Meredith Stanley (1904–1971)American biochemist and virologist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry
- Meredith Baxter (born 1947)American actress and producer
- Meredith Monk (born 1942)American musician
- Meredith Brooks (born 1958)American singer, songwriter, musician and producer
- Meredith Monroe (born 1969)American actress
- Meredith Michaels-Beerbaum (born 1969)equestrian
- Meredith Vieira (born 1953)American broadcast journalist and television personality
- Meredith Willson (1902–1984)American composer, conductor, musical arranger, flautist, bandleader and playwright
People named Meredith with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Meredith is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Meredith is most concentrated in New Hampshire (2.3×), North Carolina (2.2×), Massachusetts (1.9×), Rhode Island (1.9×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 1980
The most popular girls’ names the year Meredith peaked:
Meredith elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| England and Wales girls | Meredith | 1,575 | 491st |
| France girls | Meredith +1 spelling | 1,105 | 780th |
| Scotland girls | Meredith | 63 | 376th |
| Belgium girls | Meredith +1 spelling | 58 | 687th |
| Northern Ireland girls | Meredith | 14 | 333rd |
| England and Wales boys | Meredith | 3 | 2,901st |
| Ireland girls | Meredith | 3 | 898th |
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.
Meredith: rank by region
In 1997, Meredith was given 5 times or more in 1 region of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flanders | Meredith | 727 | 5 |
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 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.
Meredith 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Finland girls | Meredith | 5 | 19 |
A count of people on a register – 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.
Related names
Meredith 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.