Mireya
Feminine · “to admire' or 'to wonder at”
Mireya is the Spanish form of a name a poet gave the world: Frédéric Mistral called his 1859 Occitan epic *Mirèio*, and the heroine's name traveled out of Provence into French, Italian, Catalan and Spanish. Gounod set the story as an opera five years later. Spoken aloud it runs on three open vowels with the weight in the middle — mee-RAY-ah — the same easy shape as Maria and Amaya.
How old is the name Mireya?
Mireya first appears in US birth records in 1951 — 74 years ago. The typical Mireya alive today was born around 2001, making them about 24 years old. About 9,800 people named Mireya are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Mireya most popular?
Mireya peaked in 1997, reaching #447 nationally. Today it ranks #1144, 697 places below that high. See the whole 1997 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Mirèio to Mireya
The story of Mireya
The name enters the record with Frédéric Mistral's long poem *Mirèio*, published in Occitan in 1859 — a work that helped revive Provençal as a literary language and later carried its author to a share of the Nobel Prize in Literature. Charles Gounod turned the poem into the opera *Mireille* in 1864, and the heroine's name left the page for good. French took it as Mireille, Italian as Mirella, Catalan as Mireia, and Spanish as Mireya. It reached American birth records in the middle of the twentieth century and has been given quietly and continuously ever since, most often in Spanish-speaking families.
Meaningscholars disagree
'to admire' or 'to wonder at', or a Provençal form of Mary
Two serious readings compete. One ties the name to Occitan *mirar*, 'to look at, to admire'. Mistral himself linked it to Maria, saying the form was used in Provence as a variant of the Virgin's name. Both readings are held by people who know the language well, and neither has won.
How the name formed
- Mirèio
- Mireille
- Mirella
- Mireia
- Mireya
Related forms: Mirèio · Mireille · Mireia · Mirella · Mireia · Мирейя
Pronouncing Mireya
mee-RAY-ah
In Spanish the *y* works as a glide, giving three syllables with the stress on the second. English speakers occasionally land on mih-RYE-ah or mih-REE-ah; one correction usually settles it, since the spelling supports the intended reading.
Nicknames for Mireya
High
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
- 1951
- Most girls named
- 1997567 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #447reached in 1997
- Change vs 2024
- −13.3%202 in 2025, from 233
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.
Mireya in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Mirèio in Occitan — same name
- Mireille in French — same name
- Mireia in Catalan — same name
- Mirella in Italian — related form
- Mireia in Portuguese — spelling variant
- Мирейя in Russian — transliteration
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Arizona.
Mireyas among us
people named Mireya are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 7,957 born in 2025 was named Mireya
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 Elvera test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Mireya's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Elvera climbed just as high around 1919, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Elvera's path sketches the road Mireya is walking now.
Mireya 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 Mireya is headed
Mireya 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.
Mireya beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Mireya in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Spelled the way it is said for anyone who reads Spanish vowels — no silent letters, no doubled consonants to explain.
- A documented literary origin going back to a nineteenth-century poem and an opera, which is more history than most names can point to.
- Has established forms in French, Italian, Catalan and Spanish, so relatives across languages have a version they can say.
- Real, inherited short forms already in use — Mire, Miri, Mimi — rather than nicknames someone has to invent.
- Sits comfortably beside the familiar Maya, Mia and Amaya without being mistaken for any of them.
- The family of forms is large and close: Mireia, Mireille, Mirella and Mireya are all live spellings. Expect to specify which one, especially in writing.
- English-first speakers may guess the stress or the vowels wrong on a first read. The correction is short, but it will happen more than once.
- A child with this name will most likely be the only one in her school. That means no last-initial problem, and also that she will be the one teaching people the name rather than hearing it already known.
Nobody names a baby alone.
Put Mireya to the vote.
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What they receive
Someone added a name to your list
Mireya
Feminine · #1144 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Mireyas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 9,800 people named Mireya are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Mireya in 2025?
- Mireya ranks #1144 among US girl names in 2025, with 202 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Mireya?
- About 1 in every 7,957 US girls born in 2025 was named Mireya — 202 in all.
- Will my child share the name Mireya with classmates?
- Mireya will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Mireya
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Libby#1144 · Reece#1144 · Aubrielle#1144 · Natasha#1144 · Crystal#1144 · Kamari#1139 · Taliyah#1139 · Allyson#1139
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Mireya? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Mireya and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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