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.
For a British comparison, Name Census UK has a UK baby-name profile for Melchior with official rankings and popularity over time.
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
Census
Melchior in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 172 people with the first name Melchior, which placed it at #42,074 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#42,074
National first-name rank
People counted
172
172 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.1
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
47.1% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Melchior
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Melchior is White at 47.1%. The next largest groups are Black (24.4%) and Hispanic (12.2%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Melchior described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Melchior at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White47.1% · 81
- Black or African American24.4% · 42
- Hispanic or Latino12.2% · 21
- Asian and Pacific Islander8.1% · 14
- Two or more races8.1% · 14
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.
How common was Melchior in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 172 people with the name Melchior, or 0.06 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #42,074 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Melchior in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Melchior?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Melchior appears almost entirely male. Of the 167 people counted with this name, 100.0% were male and only a very small share were female. The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Melchior?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Melchior is White at 47.1%. The next largest groups are Black (24.4%) and Hispanic (12.2%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Melchior most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Melchior in the 2020 Census, accounting for 47.1% (81 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Melchior in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
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.
Is Melchior still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Melchior in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Melchior can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
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.
How many people share the name Melchior?
Want to know how many Americans are named Melchior? HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site, puts the living-bearer count front and centre.