Mysha
Feminine
Mysha is a name that two unrelated traditions can claim. In Urdu and Persian-influenced Muslim naming it appears alongside Misha and Maysha with various proposed derivations; in American English it reads as a respelling of Misha, itself a Russian short form. The y is what makes it American on the page.
How old is the name Mysha?
Mysha first appears in US birth records in 1979 — 46 years ago. The typical Mysha alive today was born around 2012, making them about 13 years old. About 600 people named Mysha are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Mysha most popular?
Mysha peaked in 2011, reaching #3781 nationally. Today it ranks #7133, 3,352 places below that high. See the whole 2011 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Misha to Mysha
Our story of Mysha
It is worth setting Mysha beside Masha, which looks like its sister and is not. Masha is a fully documented Russian diminutive of Maria with a regular derivation and a fixed place in a grammatical system. Mysha has no such anchor: it is a sound that several traditions have arrived at independently, with proposed etymologies that do not survive checking. What it does have is a very useful shape — two syllables, an open final vowel, a sh in the middle — that reads as plausibly Slavic, plausibly South Asian and plausibly invented all at once. That ambiguity is not a defect; for a family living between languages it is the point. But it means the honest answer about what Mysha means is that nobody knows, and the sources that claim otherwise are guessing.
Meaningnot established
Not established
Several derivations circulate and none is established. Arabic maʿīsha means a way of living or livelihood, from the same root as Aisha, and is sometimes cited. Russian Misha is a diminutive of Mikhail, which is Hebrew Michael, who is like God — but Misha is masculine in Russian. Urdu Misha is sometimes glossed as a form of Ayesha. No single reading is supported well enough to give.
How the name formed
- Misha
- Mysha
Related forms: میشا · Миша (Misha)
Pronouncing Mysha
MEE-shah
Two syllables, stress on the first. The y is read as a long E by families using the South Asian form and as a long I — MY-shah — by many American readers. The spelling settles neither.
Nicknames for Mysha
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
- 1979
- Most girls named
- 201140 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #3781reached in 2011
- Change vs 2024
- −40.0%15 in 2025, from 25
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.
Mysha in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- میشا in Urdu — related form
- Миша (Misha) in Russian — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, New Jersey.
Myshas among us
people named Mysha are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 107,151 born in 2025 was named Mysha
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Mysha
- #7133
- Mysha on the 2025 chart
- #896
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Mysha went to 15 girls in 2025, but Misha is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 64, which makes it the 896th most-given girls’ name of the year — 6,237 places above the chart.
- Misha49
- Mysha15
About 1 girl in 25,114 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 107,151 for Mysha 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 Shaya test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Mysha's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Shaya climbed just as high around 1982, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Shaya's path sketches the road Mysha is walking now.
Mysha 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
Mysha beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Mysha in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- It is short, two syllables, and soft throughout.
- It reads plausibly in several traditions at once, which is useful in a mixed household.
- The sh sound is easy in every language likely to encounter it.
- The first vowel has two competing readings.
- No meaning can be given honestly, despite several circulating.
- Misha is masculine in Russian, which Russian speakers will note.
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What they receive
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Mysha
Feminine · #7133 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Myshas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 600 people named Mysha are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Mysha?
- Mysha is one of 2 recorded spellings. Misha is the more common one — 49 births in 2025 against 15 for Mysha.
- How popular is the name Mysha in 2025?
- Mysha ranks #7133 among US girl names in 2025, with 15 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Mysha?
- About 1 in every 107,151 US girls born in 2025 was named Mysha — 15 in all.
- Will my child share the name Mysha with classmates?
- Mysha will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Mysha
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Pennie#7133 · Zina#7133 · Elzie#7133 · Rosabel#7133 · Adelene#7133 · Cruz#7133 · Kansas#7133 · Ione#7133
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Mysha? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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