Menelik
A masculine Ge'ez name meaning "son of the wise man".
Name Census estimates that about 380 living Americans carry the first name Menelik. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Menelik today is around 19 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Menelik births was 2020 (25 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Menelik. 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 Menelik with official rankings and popularity over time.
People living today
380
~ 1 in 901,985 Americans
Peak year
2020
25 babies that year
Average age
19
years old
2024 SSA rank
#7,085
Tracked since 1980
Census
Menelik in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 335 people with the first name Menelik, which placed it at #27,353 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
#27,353
National first-name rank
People counted
335
335 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.1
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
Black or African American
84.8% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Menelik
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Menelik is Black at 84.8%. The next largest groups are Two or More Races (6.3%) and Hispanic (5.1%). 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 Menelik 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 Menelik at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- Black or African American84.8% · 284
- Two or more races6.3% · 21
- Hispanic or Latino5.1% · 17
- White2.7% · 9
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.2% · 4
Popularity
Menelik: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Menelik from the 1980s through to the 2020s, spanning 5 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2010s, with 105 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2010s peak, Menelik remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Menelik 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 Menelik during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Meneliks live
Origin
Meaning and history of Menelik
The name Menelik originates from the Amharic language, which is a Semitic language spoken primarily in Ethiopia. It is believed to have been derived from the Ge'ez word "ማንልክ" (män'lǝk), which means "I have been compensated" or "I have been rewarded."
Menelik is a significant name in Ethiopian history, as it was the name of several kings and emperors of the Solomonic dynasty, which ruled Ethiopia from the 13th to the 20th century. The most renowned bearer of this name was Emperor Menelik II, who reigned from 1889 to 1913. He is credited with leading Ethiopia's successful resistance against Italian colonization and establishing the modern boundaries of the country.
The name Menelik is also mentioned in the Kebra Nagast, an important literary work in Ethiopian history, which relates the legend of the Queen of Sheba and her son Menelik I, who is believed to be the founder of the Solomonic dynasty. According to the legend, Menelik I was the son of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, and he became the first king of Ethiopia.
One of the earliest recorded examples of the name Menelik dates back to the 10th century, when Menelik II, also known as Ibn al-Qummi, was a prominent Muslim scholar and philosopher from Iran. Another notable bearer of the name was Menelik II of Ethiopia (1844-1913), who was the Emperor of Ethiopia from 1889 until his death in 1913.
Other historical figures who bore the name Menelik include:
1. Menelik I (c. 950 BC), the legendary first Emperor of Ethiopia and the son of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba.
2. Menelik II (1844-1913), the Emperor of Ethiopia from 1889 to 1913, who successfully defended the country from Italian colonization.
3. Menelik III (1925-1988), the grandson of Emperor Haile Selassie I and a claimant to the throne of Ethiopia after the overthrow of the monarchy in 1974.
4. Menelik Habtemariam (born 1983), an Ethiopian-American entrepreneur and co-founder of the popular social media platform Moby Group.
5. Menelik Shabazz (1935-1967), an American civil rights activist and leader of the Black Panther Party in Los Angeles during the 1960s.
People
Menelik + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Menelik 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
Menelik: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Menelik?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 380 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Menelik 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 901,985 US residents.
Is Menelik a common name?
We classify Menelik as "Very Rare". It ranks above 81.8% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 386 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Menelik most popular?
The single biggest year for Menelik was 2020, when 25 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Menelik is about 19 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Menelik in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 335 people with the name Menelik, or 0.11 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #27,353 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 Menelik 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 Menelik?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Menelik appears almost entirely male. Of the 322 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 Menelik?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Menelik is Black at 84.8%. The next largest groups are Two or More Races (6.3%) and Hispanic (5.1%). 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 Menelik most often in the Census?
Black is the largest reported group for people named Menelik in the 2020 Census, accounting for 84.8% (284 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 Menelik in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Menelik a male name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Menelik 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 Menelik still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Menelik 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 Menelik 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 Americans are named Menelik?
Want to know how many Americans are named Menelik? HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site, puts the living-bearer count front and centre.