Melanie
Masculine · “Dark”
Melanie is given to girls far more often — 262,640 girls against 614 boys since 1880. See Melanie as a girl name
Melanie is the French form of a Greek name meaning 'dark', and it became one of the defining American girls' names of the later twentieth century. Two Melanies changed their fields: a singer who wrote a song about a rain-soaked crowd at Woodstock, and a psychoanalyst who learned to read children through their play.
How old is the name Melanie?
Melanie first appears in US birth records in 1956 — 69 years ago. The typical Melanie alive today was born around 1982, making them about 43 years old. About 600 people named Melanie are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Melanie most popular?
Melanie peaked in 1972, reaching #1819 nationally. See the whole 1972 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From melaina to Melanie
The story of Melanie
Melanie Klein, working in Berlin and then London, began analyzing very young children in the 1920s by giving them small toys and watching how they played, and her ideas became one of the foundations of modern child psychotherapy. At Woodstock in 1969 the young singer Melanie Safka watched the crowd light candles in the rain during her set, and she wrote 'Lay Down (Candles in the Rain)' about it; it became her first big hit. Melanie spread widely in America in the second half of the twentieth century; the spelling is recorded for a handful of boys, but it is a girl's name in every tradition behind it.
Meaning
Dark, black
From Greek melaina, 'dark, black', through the Latin Melania and French Mélanie.
How the name formed
- melaina
- Melania
- Mélanie
- Melanie
Related forms: Mélanie · Melania · Melaina · Melania
Pronouncing Melanie
MEL-uh-nee
Three syllables with the stress on the first; French speakers stress the last.
Nicknames for Melanie
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
- 1956
- Most boys named
- 197224 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1819reached in 1972
- Change vs 2014
- −28.6%5 in 2017, from 7
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.
Melanie in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Mélanie in French — same name
- Melania in Latin — same name
- Melaina in Greek — related form
- Melania in Spanish — same name
Melanies among us
people named Melanie 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
Melanie 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
- Instantly recognized and spelled as everyone expects.
- A settled Greek meaning.
- Comes with Mel as a ready short form.
- It was very common a generation ago, so it reads as a name of that era to many.
- Some people dislike a meaning of 'dark'.
- For a boy it would be very unusual.
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What they receive
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Melanie
Masculine
Frequently asked
- How many Melanies 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 Melanie are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Melanie in 2025?
- Melanie is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 boy names.
- Will my child share the name Melanie with classmates?
- Melanie will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More M names
The most-given names starting with M, all years combined.
Michael#21 · Matthew#32 · Mark#244 · Mason#39 · Martin#335 · Marvin#699 · Melvin#958 · Marcus#258
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Melanie? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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