Melisa
Feminine · “bee”
Melisa is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 19,111 girls against 10 boys since 1880.
Melisa drops a letter from Melissa, and the Greek behind it is a bee — the word for the insect, and the title of the priestesses who served at certain Greek temples.
How old is the name Melisa?
Melisa first appears in US birth records in 1948 — 77 years ago. The typical Melisa alive today was born around 1979, making them about 46 years old. About 18,500 people named Melisa are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Melisa most popular?
Melisa peaked in 1973, reaching #341 nationally. Today it ranks #2933, 2,592 places below that high. See the whole 1973 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From melissa to Melisa
The story of Melisa
Melissa appears in Greek myth as a nymph who fed the infant Zeus on honey, and Ariosto used the name in Orlando Furioso in 1516, which carried it into European literary use. It rose enormously in twentieth-century America, reaching the top ten. The single-s spelling ran alongside it and peaked around 1978.
Meaning
bee
From the Greek melissa, 'bee', from meli, 'honey'. The priestesses of Demeter and of Artemis at Ephesus were called melissai. The lemon balm plant is Melissa officinalis because bees favor it. The word is ordinary Greek and the meaning undisputed.
How the name formed
- melissa
- Melissa
- Melisa
Related forms: Melissa · Melisa · Melisa
Pronouncing Melisa
muh-LIS-uh
Three syllables, stress in the middle. Melisa and Melissa are said identically.
Nicknames for Melisa
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
- 1948
- Most girls named
- 1979661 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #341reached in 1973
- Change vs 2023
- +5.6%57 in 2025, from 54
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.
Melisa in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Melissa in English — spelling variant
- Melisa in Turkish — same name
- Melisa in Spanish — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Florida.
Melisas among us
people named Melisa are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 28,198 born in 2025 was named Melisa
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Melisa
- #2933
- Melisa on the 2025 chart
- #897
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Melisa went to 57 girls in 2025, but Meliza is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 63, which makes it the 897th most-given girls’ name of the year — 2,036 places above the chart.
- Melisa57
- Meliza6
About 1 girl in 25,512 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 28,198 for Melisa 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 Shelba test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Melisa's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Shelba climbed just as high around 1937, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Shelba's path sketches the road Melisa is walking now.
Melisa 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
Where Melisa is headed
Melisa should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
Medium confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Melisa beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Melisa in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- The bee meaning is concrete and the priestess connection is genuinely interesting.
- It is standard in Turkish and Spanish in this exact spelling.
- Mel and Missy are two short forms at different registers.
- Melissa is overwhelmingly the standard spelling and will be assumed.
- It is closely dated to the 1970s and 1980s.
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What they receive
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Melisa
Feminine · #2933 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Melisas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 18,500 people named Melisa are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Melisa?
- Melisa is the most-used spelling in US records — 57 of the 63 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Meliza.
- How popular is the name Melisa in 2025?
- Melisa ranks #2933 among US girl names in 2025, with 57 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Melisa?
- About 1 in every 28,198 US girls born in 2025 was named Melisa — 57 in all.
- Will my child share the name Melisa with classmates?
- Melisa will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Melisa
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Taylynn#2933 · Tali#2933 · Ivori#2933 · Layah#2933 · Jailyne#2933 · Azlynn#2933 · Blima#2933 · Eulalia#2933
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Melisa? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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