Melba
Feminine · “of Melbourne”
Melba is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 34,873 girls against 52 boys since 1880.
Melba is a city, compressed. An Australian soprano took her stage name from Melbourne, and the shortened form became first a name and then — attached to toast and a peach dessert — two entries in the culinary dictionary.
How old is the name Melba?
Melba first appears in US birth records in 1893 — 132 years ago. The typical Melba alive today was born around 1932, making them about 93 years old. About 12,000 people named Melba are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Melba most popular?
Melba peaked in 1924, reaching #202 nationally. Today it ranks #11932, 11,730 places below that high. See the whole 1924 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Mill Burn to Melba
The story of Melba
Nellie Melba was among the most famous singers in the world at the turn of the twentieth century, and she was named for the city she came from. Her fame did two unusual things at once: it turned her stage name into a given name in English-speaking countries, and it attached her name to two dishes created for her by a celebrated French chef, both of which are still on menus. American use of Melba rose in the 1900s and peaked around 1928.
Meaning
of Melbourne
From the city of Melbourne, named for a British prime minister whose title came from a Derbyshire village — 'Mill Burn', the mill stream. The singer contracted the city's name to Melba as her professional name, and the given name descends from her rather than from any older source.
How the name formed
- Mill Burn
- Melbourne
- Melba
Related forms: Melbourne · Melba
Pronouncing Melba
MEL-buh
Two syllables, stress on the first. No variation between English accents.
Nicknames for Melba
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
- 1893
- Most girls named
- 1925938 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #202reached in 1924
- Change vs 2022
- −36.4%7 in 2025, from 11
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.
Melba in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Melbourne in English — related form
- Melba in Spanish — same name
Melbas among us
people named Melba are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 229,610 born in 2025 was named Melba
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 Fay test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Melba's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Fay climbed just as high around 1907, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Fay's path sketches the road Melba is walking now.
Melba 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
Melba beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Melba in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- The origin is precisely documented, which is unusual — most names cannot be dated to a decade.
- Two firm syllables with no pronunciation ambiguity.
- Mel is a clean, modern-sounding short form.
- Melba toast is the first association for many people, and it is a very dry piece of bread.
- It is strongly period-coded to the early twentieth century.
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What they receive
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Melba
Feminine · #11932 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Melbas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 12,000 people named Melba are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Melba in 2025?
- Melba ranks #11932 among US girl names in 2025, with 7 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Melba?
- About 1 in every 229,610 US girls born in 2025 was named Melba — 7 in all.
- Will my child share the name Melba with classmates?
- Melba will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Melba
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Vina#11932 · Retta#11932 · Missouri#11932 · Iola#11932 · Eddie#11932 · Thomas#11932 · Louetta#11932 · Elvina#11932
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Melba? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Melba and another name?
See them side by side — full stats, history and a gentle verdict.
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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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