Mélisande
given name · Latin script
Meaning: Literary name; possibly from Germanic roots, popularized by opera
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/meʎizɑ̃d/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Mélisande is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in France than in any other country.
- FRFrance≈1 in 223K(inferred from the name graph)
- USUnited States1 in 2.1M
- GYGuyana1 in 375K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- France (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 107 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 223K (inferred from the name graph)
≈310 people, est.
Highest-authority source
France, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
One other spelling is counted as the same name:
Locally spelled Melisande in US United States, NL Netherlands.
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
Literary name; possibly from Germanic roots, popularized by opera.
Sources 1
- Dictionnaire généalogique des prénoms
Attested across 20 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Mélisande counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FR France | ≈310 est. | ≈1 in 223K | 990 | Mélisande | 107 |
| US United States | 156 | 1 in 2.1M | 156 | Melisande | 100 |
| NL Netherlands | 40 | 1 in 432K | 40 | Melisande | 8 |
| ES Spain | ≈27 est. | ≈1 in 1.8M | — | Mélisande | 4 |
| BE Belgium | ≈18 est. | ≈1 in 638K | 5 | Mélisande | 7 |
| GY Guyana | 2 | 1 in 375K | 2 | — | 1 |
Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; INSEE — Fichier des prénoms (1900–2024); Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018); Statbel — Prénoms nouveau-nés (newborns); Guyana — Official List of Electors July 2025. Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Millicent Fawcettb. 1847GBnot in their usual nameEnglish politician, writer, and activist (1847–1929)
- Millicent Hearstb. 1882USnot in their usual nameVaudeville performer, socialite, philanthropist, and owner of Hearst Corporation (1882-1974)
- Millicent Fenwickb. 1910USnot in their usual nameAmerican politician (1910-1992)
- Elizabeth Sutherland, 24th Countess of Sutherlandb. 1921GBnot in their usual nameScottish noblewoman (1921-2019)
- Millicent Martinb. 1934GBnot in their usual nameBritish actress, singer
- Marise Chamberlainb. 1935NZnot in their usual nameNew Zealand middle-distance runner (1935–2024)
- Millie Smallb. 1947JMnot in their usual nameJamaican singer (1947–2020)
- Mimi Cravenb. 1957USnot in their usual nameAmerican actor, photographer and dancer
- Millicent Sheltonb. 1966USnot in their usual namefilm, music video and television director
- Millicent Simmondsb. 2003USnot in their usual nameAmerican actress
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
How to address them(machine-generated)
A formal English salutation is built on the surname, so it needs a full name — on its own, a first name only supports the informal form.
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 7 sources across 4 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| NL Netherlands | Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018) | — | 40 | #9,662 |
| NL Netherlands | Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (live per-name BRP counts, 1790-2017) | — | 15 | #22,970 |
| BE Belgium | Statbel — Prénoms nouveau-nés (newborns) | 1996 | 5 | #1,116 |
| FR France | Dictionary of French Prénoms (Benoist, 2009) | — | — | — |
Reference works 2
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Mélisande mean, and where does it come from?
- Literary name; possibly from Germanic roots, popularized by opera. Recorded by Dictionnaire généalogique des prénoms.
- What are other forms of the name Mélisande?
- In the etymology graph, Millie, Millicent and Milly are forms of the same name in other languages.
- How do you pronounce Mélisande?
- A machine transcription gives /meʎizɑ̃d/ (IPA) for French.
- Is Mélisande a male or female name?
- Mélisande is a female name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
- In which country does Mélisande have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 305 people named Mélisande in France, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled mélisande.
- How common is the name Mélisande?
- In the United States, the national register counted 156 people named Mélisande in 2020, about 1 in 2.1 million residents.
What do you want to know about Mélisande?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/m%C3%A9lisandeThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Mélisande”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.