Merideth
Feminine
Merideth is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 1,755 girls against 6 boys since 1880.
Both the Welsh original and the English standard put an e where this puts an i. That makes the spelling a departure from two directions at once rather than a compromise between them, in a syllable that is unstressed and reduced and therefore carries no sound to justify either letter.
How old is the name Merideth?
Merideth first appears in US birth records in 1916 — 109 years ago. The typical Merideth alive today was born around 1981, making them about 44 years old. About 1,600 people named Merideth are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Merideth most popular?
Merideth peaked in 1972, reaching #1526 nationally. See the whole 1972 chart.
Where it comes from
From Maredudd to Merideth
The story of Merideth
The commonest gloss is great lord and it does not hold up. It requires the first element to be the Welsh word for great, which is possible, and the second to be a word for a lord, which is where the difficulty starts — the form does not fit and the proposed second element is not attested in the shape required. An alternative reading involving a sea and a different noun has the same problem in a different place. Welsh name scholarship treats it as unresolved, and the confident translation on most name pages is a nineteenth-century guess that has been repeated until it looked like a fact.
Meaningnot established
Not established
The Welsh name behind it has two proposed derivations and neither survives examination. Whatever it means, nothing has been established well enough to pass on.
How the name formed
- Maredudd
- Meredith
- Merideth
Related forms: Maredudd
Pronouncing Merideth
MERR-uh-dith
Three syllables with the stress at the front. The middle vowel is reduced to nothing, which is why it can be spelled two ways without anybody noticing.
Nicknames for Merideth
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
- 1916
- Most girls named
- 197261 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1526reached in 1972
- Change vs 2020
- 0.0%6 in 2023, from 6
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.
Merideth in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Maredudd in Welsh — same name
Merideths among us
people named Merideth 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
Merideth 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
- The name underneath is genuinely ancient and Welsh rather than invented.
- It offers short forms from either end with different characters.
- The sound is completely settled even where the spelling is not.
- Meredith is standard and this spelling gets corrected constantly.
- No meaning can be given, whatever other pages assert.
- The spelling is recorded for a few boys, but nearly every child with it is a girl.
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Merideth
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Merideths are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,600 people named Merideth are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Merideth in 2025?
- Merideth is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Merideth with classmates?
- Merideth 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 Merideth? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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