Melchior
A Germanic name meaning "king of light".
Name Census estimates that about 13 living Americans carry the first name Melchior. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Melchior today is around 53 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Melchior births was 1915 (9 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Melchior. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
Key insights
- • Fewer than 100 living Americans are believed to carry the name Melchior. It is among the rarest names in the SSA records.
People living today
13
~ 1 in 26,365,718 Americans
Peak year
1915
9 babies that year
Average age
53
years old
2007 SSA rank
#13,723
Tracked since 1915
Popularity
Melchior: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Melchior from the 1910s through to the 2000s, spanning 5 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1920s, with 18 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1920s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Melchior by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Melchior during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Origin
Meaning and history of Melchior
The name Melchior has its origins in the Hebrew language and is derived from the words "melekh" meaning "king" and "or" meaning "light". It is believed to have been first used around the 5th century BCE in ancient Israel.
Melchior is most famously associated with one of the three wise men or Magi who visited the newborn Jesus, as recorded in the Gospel of Matthew. In this biblical account, Melchior is traditionally depicted as a Persian scholar and the oldest of the three kings. The name has thus been linked to Christianity and the Nativity story for centuries.
One of the earliest recorded uses of the name Melchior can be found in the 6th century Greek manuscript known as the "Chronicle of Zuqnin", which mentions a king of that name ruling over part of ancient Persia. The name also appears in various medieval European texts and legends, often in connection with the Magi story.
Throughout history, there have been several notable figures named Melchior. These include Melchior von Diepenbrock (1798-1853), a German Catholic bishop and cardinal, and Melchior Teschner (1584-1635), a German astronomer and mathematician who published works on celestial observations.
Another prominent bearer of the name was Melchior Ndadaye (1953-1993), the first democratically elected president of Burundi, whose assassination in 1993 sparked a civil war in the country. Melchior Hofmann (c. 1495-1543) was a German Renaissance theologian and a leader of the Anabaptist movement.
Melchior Schildt (1592-1667) was a Swedish aristocrat and military commander who played a significant role in the Thirty Years' War. More recently, Melchior Wathelet (1928-2022) was a Belgian politician and former President of the European Parliament.
People
Melchior + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Melchior as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with M
Other first names starting with M with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Melchior: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Melchior?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 13 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Melchior going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 26,365,718 US residents.
Is Melchior a common name?
We classify Melchior as "Very Rare". It ranks above 33.2% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 48 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Melchior most popular?
The single biggest year for Melchior was 1915, when 9 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Melchior is about 53 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
Is Melchior a male name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Melchior in the SSA data are male. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.