Mesha
Feminine
There is a stone with this name on it that is one of the most important objects in the archaeology of the ancient Near East, and it was smashed to pieces by the people who owned it before anybody could copy it properly. What survives was reconstructed from a paper impression taken days before.
How old is the name Mesha?
Mesha first appears in US birth records in 1963 — 62 years ago. The typical Mesha alive today was born around 1984, making them about 41 years old. About 1,200 people named Mesha are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Mesha most popular?
Mesha peaked in 1980, reaching #1936 nationally. See the whole 1980 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
Origin, sound and short forms
Our story of Mesha
The stone was found east of the Dead Sea in the eighteen-sixties, a black basalt slab with thirty-four lines of writing in which a king of Moab describes his wars against Israel, names his god, and mentions the house of David. It is the longest inscription surviving from Iron Age Palestine and it corroborates and contradicts the biblical account of the same events in roughly equal measure. While European consuls argued about who would buy it, the local Bedouin who held it lit a fire under it, poured cold water on it and broke it up, apparently to raise the price by selling fragments. A French scholar had already made a squeeze, a wet-paper impression of the surface, and the stone in the Louvre today is the pieces that were recovered, set into plaster reconstructed from that impression.
Meaningnot established
Not established
The American name has no traceable source; it belongs to the set built from a common opening and a common ending in the second half of the twentieth century. The Moabite king whose name it matches is a real historical figure and the two are unconnected, which is worth saying so that the coincidence is not turned into an etymology.
Pronouncing Mesha
MEE-shuh
Two syllables with the stress at the front. Some families say MESH-uh with a short first vowel, and the spelling gives no help; a single consonant between vowels leaves the first one long by default, which favors the first reading.
Nicknames for Mesha
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
- 1963
- Most girls named
- 198055 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1936reached in 1980
- Change vs 2014
- 0.0%5 in 2018, from 5
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.
Meshas among us
people named Mesha 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
Mesha 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
- Short, soft and easy to say, with nothing silent in it.
- Every sound is ordinary English and the name is never mispronounced twice.
- It is genuinely uncommon while containing nothing unfamiliar.
- Two live vowel readings and the spelling settles neither.
- Meesha, Misha and Meisha all exist for closely related sounds.
- There is no meaning to give a child who asks.
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Mesha
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Meshas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,200 people named Mesha are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Mesha in 2025?
- Mesha is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Mesha with classmates?
- Mesha 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 Mesha? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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