Merry
A feminine name meaning "high-spirited" or "joyful."
Name Census estimates that about 6,552 living Americans carry the first name Merry. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Merry today is around 62 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Merry births was 1954 (355 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Merry. 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 Merry with official rankings and popularity over time.
People living today
6.6K
~ 1 in 52,313 Americans
Peak year
1954
355 babies that year
Average age
62
years old
2024 SSA rank
#7,117
Tracked since 1898
Census
Merry in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 8,033 people with the first name Merry, which placed it at #2,864 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
#2,864
National first-name rank
People counted
8.0K
8,033 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
2.7
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
80.6% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Merry
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Merry is White at 80.6%. The next largest groups are Asian/Pacific Islander (7.6%) and Black (5.7%). 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 Merry 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 Merry at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White80.6% · 6,478
- Asian and Pacific Islander7.6% · 611
- Black or African American5.7% · 454
- Hispanic or Latino3.1% · 249
- Two or more races2.4% · 192
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.6% · 49
Popularity
Merry: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Merry from the 1890s through to the 2020s, spanning 14 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1950s, with 2,972 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1950s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Merry 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 Merry during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Merrys live
The SSA's state-level files cover 40 states and territories. California, Illinois, Michigan recorded the most babies named Merry, while Montana, Maine, Utah recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 154 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Merry
The name Merry has its roots in Old English, deriving from the word "myrige," which means "pleasant" or "joyful." It is believed to have originated in Anglo-Saxon England during the 5th to 11th centuries AD. The name was commonly used as a descriptive nickname for people with a cheerful or merry disposition.
In medieval times, the name Merry appeared in various English literary works, including the famous Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, where one of the characters is referred to as "Merry the Miller." This suggests that the name was in use during the 14th century in England.
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Merry can be found in the Domesday Book, a great survey of England commissioned by William the Conqueror in 1086. The book mentions a landowner named Merry de Wallingford, indicating the name's use among the English nobility during the 11th century.
Throughout history, several notable individuals have borne the name Merry. Merry Andrew was a popular stage name for comedians and jesters during the 16th and 17th centuries in England. One of the most famous Merry Andrews was Richard Tarlton (c. 1535-1588), a renowned comic actor in the court of Queen Elizabeth I.
Another prominent figure was Merry Ouynn (1737-1812), an English actress and writer known for her roles in Shakespearean plays and her memoir detailing her experiences in the theater.
In the realm of literature, Merry Bromfield (1579-1655) was an English poet and dramatist who collaborated with renowned playwrights like John Fletcher and Thomas Heywood during the Jacobean and Caroline eras.
Merry Lepper (1888-1975) was an American architect and educator who played a significant role in the Prairie School of architecture, working closely with Frank Lloyd Wright.
Lastly, Merry Renk (1920-2009) was a German-American artist known for her abstract expressionist paintings and her contributions to the Washington Color School movement in the mid-20th century.
People
Merry + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Merry 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
Merry: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Merry?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 6,552 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Merry 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 52,313 US residents.
Is Merry a common name?
We classify Merry as "Rare". It ranks above 97.1% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 10,360 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Merry most popular?
The single biggest year for Merry was 1954, when 355 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Merry is about 62 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Merry in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 8,033 people with the name Merry, or 2.66 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #2,864 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 Merry 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 Merry?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Merry appears almost entirely female. Of the 8,030 people counted with this name, 99.8% were female and only a very small share were male. 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 Merry?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Merry is White at 80.6%. The next largest groups are Asian/Pacific Islander (7.6%) and Black (5.7%). 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 Merry most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Merry in the 2020 Census, accounting for 80.6% (6,478 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 Merry in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Merry a female name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Merry 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 Merry still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Merry 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 Merry 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 have Merry as a first name?
For a quick modern take, check how many Americans are named Merry on our sister site HowManyOfMe.org.