Mérle
given name · Latin script
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Mérle is a female given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country. Recorded meaning: From Middle English merle, from Old French merle (French merle), from Latin merula (“blackbird”) (whence the directly borrowed Middle English merule, and compare the taxonomic name Turdus merula), fro.
- DKDenmark1 in 2K(measured from records)
- JMJamaica≈1 in 7.5Kfew records
- SGSingapore≈1 in 8.3Kfew records
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Countries with no figure are shown too: flat where a national register lists the name without counting it, hatched where only our records hold it. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- United States (measured from records)
- Record sources
- 382 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 435 (inferred from the name graph)
15,757 people, 2020
corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling
strongest: highest-authority source
Estonia, 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 Merle in US United States, GB United Kingdom, DE Germany and 6 more.
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)- Middle Englishmerle(measured from records)
- Old FrenchmerleFrench merle(measured from records)
- Latinmerula“blackbird”(measured from records)
- Proto-Indo-European*h₂mes-“black“black, blackbird”(measured from records)
From Middle English merle, from Old French merle (French merle), from Latin merula (“blackbird”) (whence the directly borrowed Middle English merule, and compare the taxonomic name Turdus merula), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂mes- (“black, blackbird”). Compare Breton moualch (“ouzel”), Welsh mwyalch (“blackbird, thrush”). Distantly related to the synonymous ouzel.
Cited for this meaning 6
- 25,000 nombres de bebé. La mejor guía para escoger el nombre adecuado
- A concise dictionary of first names
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- The Oxford Names Companion - The definitive guide to Surnames, First Names, and Place Names of the British Isles
- Wiktionary
Attested across 26 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world
(measured from records)Mérle 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | — | 15,757 | 1 in 21K | 10K | Merle | 382 |
| ZA South Africa | — | ≈7,200 est. | ≈1 in 8.8K | — | Merle | 50 |
| DE Germany | — | ≈7,200 est. | ≈1 in 12K | — | Merle | 152 |
| PH Philippines | — | ≈6,900 est. | ≈1 in 17K | — | Merle | 52 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | ≈4,500 est. | ≈1 in 15K | 3 | Merle | 104 |
| EE Estonia | — | ≈3,200 est. | ≈1 in 435 | 2.6K | Merle | 34 |
| DK Denmark | — | 2,906 | 1 in 2K | 2.9K | Merle | 44 |
| SG Singapore | #700 | ≈730 est. | ≈1 in 8.3K | — | Merle | 14 |
| JM Jamaica | #141 | ≈380 est. | ≈1 in 7.5K | — | Merle | 4 |
15,757 people counted by Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex, 2020. 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; NRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present); Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts); Statistics Estonia — Ees- ja perekonnanimed (Population Register). 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).
Evidence
(measured from records)No register attests this spelling yet
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Mérle mean, and where does it come from?
- From Middle English merle, from Old French merle (French merle), from Latin merula (“blackbird”) (whence the directly borrowed Middle English merule, and compare the taxonomic name Turdus merula), fro… Recorded by 25,000 nombres de bebé. La mejor guía para escoger el nombre adecuado and A concise dictionary of first names and 4 other sources.
- Is Mérle a male or female name?
- Mérle 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 Mérle have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 16 thousand people named Mérle, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled merle.
- How common is the name Mérle?
- In the United States, the national register counted 15,757 people named Mérle in 2020, about 1 in 21 thousand residents.
- How common is Mérle compared with other names?
- In Jamaica, Mérle is the 141st most common given name of 21,568 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Mérle?
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%A9rleThe 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, “Mérle” — the 141st most common given name in Jamaica. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.