Maranda
Feminine · “fit to be wondered at”
Maranda spells the name the way Americans actually say it. Miranda's first syllable is unstressed and reduces to almost nothing in ordinary speech, so the i and the a sound identical there — which means this spelling is phonetically honest and only looks like a mistake. The name itself was invented for a play, and it means something quite specific.
How old is the name Maranda?
Maranda first appears in US birth records in 1886 — 139 years ago. The typical Maranda alive today was born around 1991, making them about 34 years old. About 11,000 people named Maranda are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Maranda most popular?
Maranda peaked in 1994, reaching #406 nationally. Today it ranks #14942, 14,536 places below that high. See the whole 1994 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From mirandus to Maranda
The story of Maranda
Shakespeare made the name for the daughter in The Tempest, and he made it out of Latin he expected part of his audience to recognize — the character's father names her, in the play, as the wonder of the island. Like most coined names it stayed rare for a long time and then became ordinary very suddenly, several centuries later. The Maranda spelling appears in American records from the nineteenth century, well before that rise, which suggests it arrived by ear rather than by choice: a name heard, written down as it sounded, and then passed on within families that way.
Meaning
fit to be wondered at
Latin mirandus is a gerundive, a form that means having to be or deserving to be done — so mirandus is deserving of wonder, from mirari, to marvel at. That is the whole meaning and it is not disputed. What makes it unusual is the grammar: the name is not an adjective describing someone as wonderful but a statement that they ought to be wondered at, which is a different and slightly stranger thing. The same root gives English miracle, mirror and admire.
How the name formed
- mirandus
- Miranda
- Maranda
Related forms: Miranda · Miranda · Miranda
Pronouncing Maranda
muh-RAN-duh
muh-RAN-duh, three syllables, stress in the middle. The first vowel is reduced to a schwa in ordinary English, which is exactly why this spelling exists — an unstressed a and an unstressed i are the same sound, and only the page can tell them apart.
Nicknames for Maranda
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
- 1886
- Most girls named
- 1995614 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #406reached in 1994
- Change vs 2023
- −16.7%5 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.
Maranda in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Miranda in Spanish — same name
- Miranda in Italian — same name
- Miranda in Portuguese — same name
Marandas among us
people named Maranda are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 321,453 born in 2025 was named Maranda
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 Maryanne test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Maranda's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Maryanne climbed just as high around 1942, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Maryanne's path sketches the road Maranda is walking now.
Maranda 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
Maranda beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Maranda in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- The spelling matches how the name is genuinely said, which the standard one only approximates.
- Mira, Randi and Andi are all available and they sound like three different names.
- The meaning is precise and unusual, and it comes with a documented moment of invention.
- Miranda is the standard spelling and this will be corrected toward it constantly, in writing and in databases.
- Because the difference is inaudible, defending the a is a purely visual argument and a tiring one.
- In the United States the name is also attached to a very well-known legal warning, and that association is fixed.
Nobody names a baby alone.
Put Maranda to the vote.
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What they receive
Someone added a name to your list
Maranda
Feminine · #14942 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Marandas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 11,000 people named Maranda are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Maranda in 2025?
- Maranda ranks #14942 among US girl names in 2025, with 5 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Maranda?
- About 1 in every 321,453 US girls born in 2025 was named Maranda — 5 in all.
- Will my child share the name Maranda with classmates?
- Maranda will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Maranda
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Hester#14942 · Lyda#14942 · Zula#14942 · Zona#14942 · Ula#14942 · Belva#14942 · Lucetta#14942 · Leala#14942
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Maranda? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Maranda and another name?
See them side by side — full stats, history and a gentle verdict.
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Weighing a whole shortlist? Add the rest in the builder, or settle it with a bracket.
Cast your vote
Which one would you pick?
Your gut first, the numbers after — the split shows once you pick.
US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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