Maheen
Feminine · “moonlike”
Maheen is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 638 girls against 6 boys since 1880.
Mah is the Persian word for the moon, and it opens a great many names across the Persian-speaking world — Mahtab, Mahnaz, Mahin. Maheen sits in that family, and it has a second reading that pulls the other way: in Urdu the same word means fine, delicate, subtle, said of thread or cloth. Both are current, and a family may mean either.
How old is the name Maheen?
Maheen first appears in US birth records in 1984 — 41 years ago. The typical Maheen alive today was born around 2006, making them about 19 years old. About 600 people named Maheen are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Maheen most popular?
Maheen peaked in 2001, reaching #3864 nationally. Today it ranks #13208, 9,344 places below that high. See the whole 2001 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From mah to Maheen
The story of Maheen
Persian supplied the courtly and poetic vocabulary of South Asia for centuries, and moon-names are among the most durable pieces of it: the moon in Persian poetry stands for beauty and for a beloved face, and names built on it have been given for a thousand years. Maheen is used in Pakistan and India and among South Asian families abroad. American records carry it from the mid-1980s, concentrated in New York and Texas, and it is given to daughters and occasionally to sons.
Meaningscholars disagree
moonlike, or fine and delicate
Two readings, both genuine. Persian mah is the moon, and mahin can mean of the moon or, in another sense, the greatest. Urdu, which took a very large Persian vocabulary, uses maheen to mean fine, thin or delicate — of thread, of work, of a distinction. The spelling does not choose between them.
How the name formed
- mah
- Mahin
- Maheen
Related forms: Mahin · Maheen · Mahin
Pronouncing Maheen
mah-HEEN
Two syllables with the stress at the back and both vowels long. English speakers sometimes say MAY-heen, which the spelling invites and neither Persian nor Urdu supports.
Nicknames for Maheen
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
- 200133 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #3864reached in 2001
- Change vs 2023
- 0.0%6 in 2025, from 6
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.
Maheen in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Mahin in Persian — same name
- Maheen in Urdu — same name
- Mahin in Turkish — same name
Maheens among us
people named Maheen are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 267,878 born in 2025 was named Maheen
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Shama test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Maheen's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Shama climbed just as high around 1974, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Shama's path sketches the road Maheen is walking now.
Maheen 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
Maheen beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Maheen in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Both possible meanings are good, and one of them is unusually specific — fineness rather than beauty.
- Six letters, two syllables, and no sound English lacks.
- It is used across a very large part of the world, so it travels well.
- Mahi works as a warm short form and is a real name.
- English speakers mishandle the first vowel until told.
- Mahin, Maheen and Mahine are all in use, so the spelling has to be given.
- Nearly every child given this spelling is a girl, though it is not exclusively a woman's name in Persian.
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What they receive
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Maheen
Feminine · #13208 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Maheens 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 Maheen are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Maheen in 2025?
- Maheen ranks #13208 among US girl names in 2025, with 6 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Maheen?
- About 1 in every 267,878 US girls born in 2025 was named Maheen — 6 in all.
- Will my child share the name Maheen with classmates?
- Maheen will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Maheen
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
John#13208 · Vinnie#13208 · Margery#13208 · Jossie#13208 · Tressa#13208 · Erie#13208 · Bernadine#13208 · Euna#13208
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Maheen? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Maheen and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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