Meah
Feminine
Meah is Mia written with Leah's grammar. English has a small set of names ending in -eah — Leah, Aleah, Shaleah — and the ending is unusual because it makes the h silent while forcing the vowel before it to stay long. Applying that ending to Mia produces a name that looks older than it is.
How old is the name Meah?
Meah first appears in US birth records in 1979 — 46 years ago. The typical Meah alive today was born around 2009, making them about 16 years old. About 1,600 people named Meah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Meah most popular?
Meah peaked in 2006, reaching #1709 nationally. Today it ranks #7133, 5,424 places below that high. See the whole 2006 chart.
Where it comes from
From Maria to Meah
Our story of Meah
The -eah ending is borrowed rather than invented, and Leah is where it comes from. Leah is a biblical name whose Hebrew spelling ends in a letter English renders as h, and English readers absorbed the pattern without knowing its source: a vowel, an a, and a silent h. Once absorbed, the ending detached and became available. Aleah, Kaleah, Nyleah and Meah are all built with it, and what it buys is a specific illusion — the h makes a modern name look scriptural, because the only common English names with that ending are biblical. Meah, peaking in 2006, is Mia given that treatment: two letters longer, exactly as long in the mouth, and visually relocated by about three thousand years.
Meaningnot established
Not established
As a respelling of Mia it inherits Mia's own uncertainty: Mia is a Scandinavian and Italian short form of Maria, and separately an Italian word meaning "mine". As an independent spelling Meah has no etymology. Hebrew meah means "hundred", which is a genuine word but is not the source of the American name. No reading can be given confidently.
How the name formed
- Maria
- Mia
- Meah
Pronouncing Meah
MEE-uh
Two syllables, stress on the first, said exactly like Mia. Some speakers read it as one syllable, MAY, on the model of the French word — the spelling does not rule that out.
Nicknames for Meah
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
- 1979
- Most girls named
- 2006122 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1709reached in 2006
- Change vs 2024
- +7.1%15 in 2025, from 14
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.
Meah in other languages
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Michigan, Texas.
Meahs among us
people named Meah are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 107,151 born in 2025 was named Meah
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Meah
- #7133
- Meah on the 2025 chart
- #928
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Meah went to 15 girls in 2025, but Mea is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 32, which makes it the 928th most-given girls’ name of the year — 6,205 places above the chart.
- Mea17
- Meah15
About 1 girl in 50,227 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 107,151 for Meah 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 Zenaida test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Meah's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Zenaida climbed just as high around 1974, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Zenaida's path sketches the road Meah is walking now.
Meah 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
Meah beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Meah in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- It is identical in sound to a top-ten name while being rare on paper.
- The -eah ending gives it a scriptural look without any claim being made.
- It is four letters and two syllables, about as compact as a name gets.
- Mia is overwhelmingly more common and will be written instead.
- The silent h has no function and will be dropped by others.
- The name has no meaning, and the Hebrew word it resembles is unrelated.
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Meah
Feminine · #7133 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Meahs are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,600 people named Meah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Meah?
- Meah is one of 2 recorded spellings. Mea is the more common one — 17 births in 2025 against 15 for Meah.
- How popular is the name Meah in 2025?
- Meah ranks #7133 among US girl names in 2025, with 15 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Meah?
- About 1 in every 107,151 US girls born in 2025 was named Meah — 15 in all.
- Will my child share the name Meah with classmates?
- Meah will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Meah
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Pennie#7133 · Zina#7133 · Elzie#7133 · Rosabel#7133 · Adelene#7133 · Cruz#7133 · Kansas#7133 · Ione#7133
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Meah? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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