Meredith
Of Welsh origin meaning "sea protector" or "great ruler".
Name Census estimates that about 69,978 living Americans carry the first name Meredith. It sits at #492 in the overall ranking, outside the top 50 but still well-represented. It is a predominantly female name (94.8% of registrations). The average person named Meredith today is around 39 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Meredith births was 1980 (2,087 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Meredith. 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 Meredith with official rankings and popularity over time.
People living today
70K
~ 1 in 4,898 Americans
Peak year
1980
2,087 babies that year
Average age
39
years old
2011 SSA rank
#492
Tracked since 1883
Census
Meredith in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 69,220 people with the first name Meredith, which placed it at #738 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
#738
National first-name rank
People counted
69K
69,220 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
22.9
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
90.2% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Meredith
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Meredith is White at 90.2%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (3.5%) and Two or More Races (2.5%). 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 Meredith 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 Meredith at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White90.2% · 62,430
- Hispanic or Latino3.5% · 2,394
- Two or more races2.5% · 1,731
- Black or African American2.5% · 1,715
- Asian and Pacific Islander1.0% · 713
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.3% · 237
Gender
Gender distribution for Meredith
Meredith leans heavily female at 94.8% of total registrations, but 4,257 boys have also been registered with the name over the years, giving it a small but present crossover presence.
Meredith as a male name
- Ranked #13,654 in 2011
- 5 male births in 2011
- Peak: 1920 (106 births)
Meredith as a female name
- Ranked #492 in 2024
- 621 female births in 2024
- Peak: 1980 (2,071 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Meredith leans strongly female. 67,682 people counted with this name were female (97.8%), compared with 1,533 male bearers (2.2%).
Popularity
Meredith: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Meredith from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 15 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1980s, with 19,392 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1980s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Meredith 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 Meredith during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Merediths live
The SSA's state-level files cover 50 states and territories. Texas, New York, North Carolina recorded the most babies named Meredith, while Alaska, Montana, Hawaii recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 1,477 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Meredith
The name Meredith is of Welsh origin, derived from the Welsh words "mor" meaning "sea" and "rhyddhau" meaning "to free" or "to spread out." It was initially used as a Welsh surname before being adopted as a given name.
The name is believed to have originated in the medieval period, around the 12th or 13th century, when Welsh surnames first began to emerge. The earliest recorded use of the name Meredith as a surname dates back to the late 13th century, found in records from the county of Herefordshire, England.
One of the earliest known historical references to the name Meredith is in the Welsh manuscript "Llyfr Baglan" (The Book of Baglan), dating back to the late 14th century. This manuscript contains a collection of Welsh poetry and mentions a poet named Meredith ap Rhys.
In the 16th century, the name Meredith gained popularity as a given name, primarily among the Welsh gentry and nobility. One notable figure with this name was Meredith Hanmer (c. 1543-1604), a Welsh clergyman and historian who wrote the influential work "The Chronicle of Ireland."
During the 17th century, the name Meredith began to spread beyond Wales and into other parts of Britain. One famous bearer of this name was Meredith Frampton (1589-1664), an English politician and member of the Long Parliament during the English Civil War.
In the 18th century, the name Meredith was further popularized by the works of the English writer and playwright George Meredith (1828-1909), who is considered one of the greatest novelists of the Victorian era. His most famous works include "The Egoist" and "The Ordeal of Richard Feverel."
Another prominent figure with the name Meredith was Meredith Wilson (1902-1984), an American composer and playwright best known for writing the popular musical "The Music Man."
Other notable individuals with the name Meredith throughout history include:
Meredith Kline (1922-2007), an American Christian theologian and Old Testament scholar.
Meredith Vieira (born 1953), an American journalist and television host.
Meredith Brooks (born 1958), an American singer-songwriter and guitarist.
Meredith Willson (1902-1984), an American composer and playwright.
Meredith Michaels-Beerbaum (born 1969), a German showjumper and equestrian.
Notable bearers
Famous people named Meredith
People
Meredith + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Meredith 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
Meredith: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Meredith?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 69,978 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Meredith 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 4,898 US residents.
Is Meredith a common name?
We classify Meredith as "Uncommon". It ranks above 99.3% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 81,382 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Meredith most popular?
The single biggest year for Meredith was 1980, when 2,087 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Meredith is about 39 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Meredith in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 69,220 people with the name Meredith, or 22.92 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #738 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 Meredith 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 Meredith?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Meredith leans strongly female. 67,682 people counted with this name were female (97.8%), compared with 1,533 male bearers (2.2%). 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 Meredith?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Meredith is White at 90.2%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (3.5%) and Two or More Races (2.5%). 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 Meredith most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Meredith in the 2020 Census, accounting for 90.2% (62,430 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 Meredith in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Meredith a female name?
Yes, 94.8% of people registered as Meredith in the SSA data are female. 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 Meredith still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Meredith 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 Meredith 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 common is the name Meredith?
HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site, answers that with the living-bearer count in one glance.