Maayan
Feminine · “Hebrew maayan”
Maayan is given to both — 616 girls and 28 boys since 1880. See other names given to both
Modern Israeli naming was a project. A revived language needed a name stock that was Hebrew rather than Yiddish or European, and the solution was to press ordinary nouns into service: Maayan is a spring of water, Tal is dew, Or is light, Shai is a gift, Sivan is a month. The vocabulary became the name list.
How old is the name Maayan?
Maayan first appears in US birth records in 1984 — 41 years ago. The typical Maayan alive today was born around 2009, making them about 16 years old. About 600 people named Maayan are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Maayan most popular?
Maayan peaked in 2009, reaching #4370 nationally. Today it ranks #8860, 4,490 places below that high. See the whole 2009 chart.
Where it comes from
From maayan to Maayan
The story of Maayan
The revival of Hebrew as a spoken language from the 1880s onward required decisions about almost everything, and names were among them. The existing Jewish name stock was largely biblical, Yiddish or borrowed from surrounding European languages, and the new settlements wanted names that were Hebrew, modern and unattached to the diaspora. What they used was the language itself: nature words, virtues, months, times of day, plants and geographical features, all of them ordinary vocabulary given as names. Tal, dew; Or, light; Shachar, dawn; Aviv, spring; Maayan, a spring of water; Sivan and Nisan, months; Nofar and Rakefet, flowers. The practice is still productive and it makes Israeli naming unusually transparent: a Hebrew speaker can read almost any modern Israeli name straight off, which is not true of any European name stock.
Meaning
Hebrew maayan, a spring or fountain
From Hebrew maayan, a spring, well or source of water, from the root ayin, an eye, which also means a spring: Hebrew uses one word for both. The name is unisex in Israel and is written with a doubled a in English to represent the ayin, a consonant English does not have. It peaks in the American data in 2009.
How the name formed
- maayan
- Maayan
Related forms: Maayan
Pronouncing Maayan
mah-ah-YAHN
Three syllables, stress on the last. The doubled a represents the ayin, a pharyngeal consonant Hebrew has and English does not; speakers who cannot produce it leave a small gap. Americans usually say MY-an or MAH-yan.
Nicknames for Maayan
Moderate
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1984
- Most girls named
- 200934 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #4370reached in 2009
- Change vs 2024
- −38.9%11 in 2025, from 18
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Maayan in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Maayan in Hebrew — transliteration
Strongest US states over the last decade: New York, California.
Maayans among us
people named Maayan are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 146,115 born in 2025 was named Maayan
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Maayan
- #8860
- Maayan on the 2025 chart
- #920
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Maayan went to 11 girls in 2025, but Mayan is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 40, which makes it the 920th most-given girls’ name of the year — 7,940 places above the chart.
- Mayan29
- Maayan11
About 1 girl in 40,182 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 146,115 for Maayan itself.
Spellings are grouped by a fixed rule that folds interchangeable English spellings of one sound (ck/k, ph/f, x/ks, a non-initial y for i) and keeps vowels apart, so Sean and Shawn stay separate names. It errs towards splitting: a family here is never larger than the truth. SSA national data, 2025. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Aparna test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Maayan's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Aparna climbed just as high around 1975, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Aparna's path sketches the road Maayan is walking now.
Maayan sits in the calm middle of the cycle — neither chasing a wave nor sliding off one. Middle-of-the-cycle names age slowly and predictably.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Maayan beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Maayan in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- The meaning is settled, concrete and pleasant.
- It is unisex in Israel, which is unusual and useful.
- The word is transparent to any Hebrew speaker.
- The consonant the doubled a represents does not exist in English.
- The stress falls on the last syllable, which English speakers move.
- It is rare outside Israeli and Jewish American families.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Maayan
Feminine · #8860 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Maayans are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 600 people named Maayan are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Maayan?
- Maayan is one of 2 recorded spellings. Mayan is the more common one — 29 births in 2025 against 11 for Maayan.
- How popular is the name Maayan in 2025?
- Maayan ranks #8860 among US girl names in 2025, with 11 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Maayan?
- About 1 in every 146,115 US girls born in 2025 was named Maayan — 11 in all.
- Will my child share the name Maayan with classmates?
- Maayan will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Maayan
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Lida#8860 · Lauretta#8860 · Dot#8860 · Bonita#8860 · Benita#8860 · Trixie#8860 · Adna#8860 · Sue#8860
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Maayan? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Maayan and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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