Meri
Feminine · “Finnish meri”
Meri is Finnish for the sea, and it belongs to a name stock that was largely built on purpose. Nineteenth-century Finland needed Finnish names, and a national epic and a wave of name-changing supplied them within two generations.
How old is the name Meri?
Meri first appears in US birth records in 1917 — 108 years ago. The typical Meri alive today was born around 1965, making them about 60 years old. About 2,200 people named Meri are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Meri most popular?
Meri peaked in 1955, reaching #1157 nationally. Today it ranks #10107, 8,950 places below that high. See the whole 1955 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From meri to Meri
The story of Meri
When Elias Lonnrot published the Kalevala in 1835, assembled from oral poetry he collected in Karelia, Finland acquired a national epic and, incidentally, a name stock. Names from the poem entered use immediately: Aino, Ilmari, Kyllikki, Tapio. Aino is the clearest case of what was happening, because the word aino means only or sole, and Lonnrot appears to have taken a descriptive phrase in the verse for a personal name; a misreading became one of the most common girls' names in the country. Alongside that, Finnish families changed Swedish surnames for Finnish ones by the hundred thousand, and ordinary Finnish nouns were adopted as given names: Meri the sea, Lumi snow, Tuuli wind. Very few European name stocks can be dated so precisely, and almost none was assembled so deliberately.
Meaningscholars disagree
Finnish meri, the sea
Meri is the Finnish word for sea and a Finnish given name. In American records the spelling is at least as often a short form of Mary, Meredith or Merilyn, and the two sources cannot be separated. The peak is 1955.
How the name formed
- meri
- Meri
Related forms: Meri · Merry · Mary
Pronouncing Meri
MER-ee
Two syllables, stress on the first, in both Finnish and English. It is a homophone of merry in most American speech.
Nicknames for Meri
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
- 1917
- Most girls named
- 196189 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1157reached in 1955
- Change vs 2023
- −30.8%9 in 2025, from 13
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.
Meri in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Meri in Finnish — same name
- Merry in English — spelling variant
- Mary in English — related form
Meris among us
people named Meri are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 178,585 born in 2025 was named Meri
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Meri
- #10107
- Meri on the 2025 chart
- #930
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Meri went to 9 girls in 2025, but Mery and Merry are the same name said out loud. Together the 3 spellings went to 30, which makes it the 930th most-given girls’ name of the year — 9,177 places above the chart.
About 1 girl in 53,576 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 178,585 for Meri 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 Reda test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Meri's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Reda climbed just as high around 1938, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Reda's path sketches the road Meri is walking now.
Meri 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
Meri beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Meri in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Four letters and two syllables, short in either language.
- The Finnish meaning is an ordinary word rather than a name-book gloss.
- Mary and Meredith are both available as formal versions.
- It sounds exactly like the word merry.
- The two possible origins give two different meanings.
- It reads as a nickname in English-speaking settings.
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What they receive
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Meri
Feminine · #10107 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Meris are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 2,200 people named Meri are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Meri?
- Meri is one of 3 recorded spellings. Mery is the more common one — 12 births in 2025 against 9 for Meri.
- How popular is the name Meri in 2025?
- Meri ranks #10107 among US girl names in 2025, with 9 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Meri?
- About 1 in every 178,585 US girls born in 2025 was named Meri — 9 in all.
- Will my child share the name Meri with classmates?
- Meri will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Meri
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Berta#10107 · Jettie#10107 · Maye#10107 · Osa#10107 · Fidelia#10107 · Alysa#10107 · Su#10107 · Willie#10107
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Meri? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Meri and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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