Meisha
Feminine
Meisha uses a pair of letters that English cannot be trusted with. Ei says four different things depending on the word — the vowel of seize, the vowel of vein, the vowel of height, and the almost-nothing of foreign — and there is no rule that tells a reader which one is coming.
How old is the name Meisha?
Meisha first appears in US birth records in 1967 — 58 years ago. The typical Meisha alive today was born around 1989, making them about 36 years old. About 1,000 people named Meisha are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Meisha most popular?
Meisha peaked in 1990, reaching #2128 nationally. See the whole 1990 chart.
Where it comes from
From a borrowed sound enters American naming in the 1960s to Meisha
The story of Meisha
The trouble with ei goes back to the fact that English acquired it from several directions at once. Some of the words came from French, some from Latin, some from Dutch and German, and some are native words respelled by scribes who liked the look of it. Each group brought its own pronunciation, and English never sorted them out. The famous rule about i before e was written for a small set of Latin borrowings and does not describe names at all — which is why a name using the pair arrives with a one-in-four chance of being read as its family intended.
Meaningnot established
Not established
The name belongs to the large American family built on a borrowed sound in the second half of the last century, and it is one of the shorter members of it. Whether it was cut down from a longer name in that family or arrived on its own is not recorded, and both happen: these names shorten and lengthen freely, and the record shows the results without the reasoning.
How the name formed
- a borrowed sound enters American naming in the 1960s
- a family of names forms around it
- Meisha appears in the record in the late 1960s
- peaks at the start of the 1990s
- rarely given since
Related forms: Miesha · Mesha
Pronouncing Meisha
MEE-shuh
Two syllables, stress at the front. The ei writes a long e here, which is the commonest of its four jobs in names and by no means the commonest in ordinary words.
Nicknames for Meisha
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
- 1967
- Most girls named
- 199061 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #2128reached in 1990
- Change vs 2021
- 0.0%8 in 2022, from 8
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.
Meisha in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Miesha in English — spelling variant
- Mesha in English — spelling variant
Meishas among us
people named Meisha are estimated to be alive in the US today
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Meisha sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- It is short, soft and easy to say once the first vowel is settled.
- Shay is available as a short form and is entirely current.
- It is genuinely rare within a very large family of related names.
- The vowel pair is ambiguous and readers will guess wrong some of the time.
- Miesha and Mesha are both in the record and will be substituted.
- There is no meaning to give her and no origin beyond the pattern.
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Meisha
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Meishas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,000 people named Meisha are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Meisha in 2025?
- Meisha is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Meisha with classmates?
- Meisha will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More M names
The most-given names starting with M, all years combined.
Mary#125 · Margaret#112 · Michelle#465 · Melissa#419 · Maria#87 · Martha#712 · Marie#617 · Mildred#1962
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Meisha? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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