Merlín

Name: Merlín: recorded bearers, distribution and rank
Creator: Mondonomo
Published: 2026-10-13
License: https://mondonomo.ai/tos#rights

given name · Latin script

Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published

(measured from records)Officially recorded in 3 countries

Merlín is a given name used for both men and women, written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Cameroon than in any other country. Recorded meaning: Borrowed from Medieval Latin Merlinus and Old French Merlin, from Old Welsh Myrddin, a name roughly meaning "of the sea-hills," from Proto-Celtic *mori *dūnom (literally “sea stronghold”).

CMCameroon≈1 in 2Kfew records(inferred from the name graph)
CRCosta Rica1 in 11K
SGSingapore≈1 in 18Kfew 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.

: Cameroon (inferred from the name graph)
Record sources: 342 (measured from records)
: ≈1 in 2.0K (inferred from the name graph)

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)Make your nomograph ✦

Spellings & scripts

One other spelling is counted as the same name:

Merlin

Locally spelled Merlin in US United States, PH Philippines, IN India and 3 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

Merlín

Medieval Latin Merlinusand(measured from records)
Old WelshMyrddin(measured from records)
Proto-Celtic*mori(measured from records)

Borrowed from Medieval Latin Merlinus and Old French Merlin, from Old Welsh Myrddin, a name roughly meaning "of the sea-hills," from Proto-Celtic *mori *dūnom (literally “sea stronghold”).

Cited for this meaning 1

Wiktionary

Attested across 20 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world

Merlín 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.

Where Merlín is recorded, by country
Country					Most common spelling	Sources
CM Cameroon	#300	≈15,000 est.	≈1 in 2K	—	Merlin	18
IN India	—	≈11,000 est.	≈1 in 136K	—	Merlin	78
US United States	—	8,662	1 in 38K	6.7K	Merlin	342
PH Philippines	—	≈4,400 est.	≈1 in 26K	—	Merlin	47
ZA South Africa	—	≈1,500 est.	≈1 in 42K	—	Merlin	32
CR Costa Rica	—	476	1 in 11K	476	—	—
CH Switzerland	—	≈360 est.	≈1 in 25K	106	—	28
SG Singapore	—	≈330 est.	≈1 in 18K	—	Merlin	22
AL Albania	—	129	1 in 24K	91	—	—

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; TSE — electoral roll (padrón) names; BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames); INSTAT Albania — Search the name (given-name counts). 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).

Other names spelled this way

Merlín is also recorded as 4 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

Indonesian given name3 spellings in the group
Most recorded in Indonesia, Philippines, India, United States
Also written Merlin, 'Merlin
a separate name2 spellings in the group
Also written Merlin
Thai given name7 spellings in the group
Most recorded in Thailand, Laos, United States, India
Languages: Thai, Lao
Also written Merlin, เมอร์ลิน, แมร์แลง, แมรแลง
Turkish given name3 spellings in the group
Most recorded in Türkiye, United States, Philippines, Syria
Languages: Turkish, Azerbaijani
Also written Merlin

10 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Evidence

No register attests this spelling yet

None of the official registers or reference works in our corpus lists Merlín under this spelling. The statistics on this page rest on person records, and the related names are inferred from the name graph.

Frequently asked questions

What does the name Merlín mean, and where does it come from?: Borrowed from Medieval Latin Merlinus and Old French Merlin, from Old Welsh Myrddin, a name roughly meaning "of the sea-hills," from Proto-Celtic *mori *dūnom (literally “sea stronghold”). Recorded by Wiktionary.
Is Merlín a male or female name?: Merlín is recorded for both men and women. We don't publish a percentage split: a record's gender belongs to the person and is attached to every given name on that record, so names in cultures where a name string also carries a parent's or spouse's given name pick up large cross-gender counts.
Which countries have the most people named Merlín?: Mondonomo estimates about 15 thousand people named Merlín in Cameroon, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled merlin. After it come India, United States, Philippines and South Africa; the country table on this page ranks them.
How common is the name Merlín?: In the United States, the national register counted 8,662 people named Merlín in 2020, about 1 in 38 thousand residents.
How common is Merlín compared with other names?: In Cameroon, Merlín is the 300th most common given name of 9,064 given names recorded there.

What do you want to know about Merlín?

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/merl%C3%ADn

The 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 2026-10-13 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, “Merlín” — the 300th most common given name in Cameroon. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.

See how Merlín parses inside a full name →