Merriel
A feminine name meaning "shining light" or "bright one".
Name Census estimates that about 21 living Americans carry the first name Merriel. It appears on both sides of the gender split, with 87.5% of registrations being female. The average person named Merriel today is around 83 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Merriel births was 1922 (9 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Merriel. 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
- • The typical person named Merriel is about 83 years old today, placing it firmly among the names of earlier generations. Most living Merriels were born before 1953.
- • Fewer than 100 living Americans are believed to carry the name Merriel. It is among the rarest names in the SSA records.
People living today
21
~ 1 in 16,321,635 Americans
Peak year
1922
9 babies that year
Average age
83
years old
1953 SSA rank
#4,171
Tracked since 1912
Census
Merriel in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 137 people with the first name Merriel, which placed it at #47,543 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
#47,543
National first-name rank
People counted
137
137 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.0
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
69.3% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Merriel
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Merriel is White at 69.3%. The next largest groups are Black (22.6%) and Two or More Races (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 Merriel 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 Merriel at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White69.3% · 95
- Black or African American22.6% · 31
- Two or more races5.1% · 7
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.5% · 2
- Hispanic or Latino0.7% · 1
- Asian and Pacific Islander0.7% · 1
Gender
Gender distribution for Merriel
Merriel leans heavily female at 87.5% of total registrations, but 13 boys have also been registered with the name over the years, giving it a small but present crossover presence.
Merriel as a male name
- Ranked #4,171 in 1953
- 5 male births in 1953
- Peak: 1925 (8 births)
Merriel as a female name
- Ranked #5,853 in 1947
- 5 female births in 1947
- Peak: 1922 (9 births)
2020 Census snapshot
The 2020 Census sex table shows Merriel on both sides of the split. Of the 146 people counted with this name, 43 were male (29.5%) and 103 were female (70.5%).
Popularity
Merriel: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Merriel from the 1910s through to the 1950s, spanning 5 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1920s, with 36 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
Merriel 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 Merriel 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 Merriel
The name Merriel is of Old English origin, derived from the elements "merry" and "el," which may have been a diminutive suffix. It's thought to have originated as a name in medieval England, around the 12th or 13th century.
One of the earliest known bearers of the name was Merriel of Nottingham, a noblewoman who lived in the late 12th century. Records mention her as a landowner in the county of Nottinghamshire during the reign of King Richard I.
The name Merriel appears sporadically in historical records throughout the Middle Ages, often associated with members of the gentry or minor nobility. In the 14th century, a woman named Merriel de Vere was recorded as being part of the household of Elizabeth de Burgh, Lady of Clare.
During the Renaissance period, the name gained some popularity among the upper classes. Merriel Willoughby, born in 1540, was a courtier in the court of Queen Elizabeth I and is mentioned in several contemporaneous accounts of the time.
In the 17th century, a Puritan woman named Merriel Winthrop was one of the early settlers of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, arriving in 1630. She is noted in colonial records as one of the founders of the town of Ipswich.
Another notable bearer of the name was Merriel Aubrey, a British poet and writer who lived from 1685 to 1757. She is best known for her collection of pastoral poems titled "The Shepherd's Garland," published in 1720.
While the name Merriel has never been extremely common, it has persisted throughout the centuries, often favored by families with connections to the English gentry or nobility. It has been used occasionally as a feminine form of the more common name Merrill or Merrill.
People
Merriel + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Merriel 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
Merriel: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Merriel?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 21 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Merriel 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 16,321,635 US residents.
Is Merriel a common name?
We classify Merriel as "Very Rare". It ranks above 40.8% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 104 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Merriel most popular?
The single biggest year for Merriel was 1922, when 9 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Merriel is about 83 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Merriel in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 137 people with the name Merriel, or 0.05 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #47,543 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 Merriel 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 Merriel?
The 2020 Census sex table shows Merriel on both sides of the split. Of the 146 people counted with this name, 43 were male (29.5%) and 103 were female (70.5%). 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 Merriel?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Merriel is White at 69.3%. The next largest groups are Black (22.6%) and Two or More Races (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 Merriel most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Merriel in the 2020 Census, accounting for 69.3% (95 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 Merriel in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Merriel a female name?
Yes, 87.5% of people registered as Merriel 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 Merriel still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Merriel 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 Merriel 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 are named Merriel?
For a faster, more casual read, check HowManyOfMe.org — our sister site built around that single question.