Merlyn
given name · Latin script
Used for both men and women, depending on the country· national registers that list names by sex disagree
- United States (Census Bureau, 2020): listed under both sexes
- Venezuela (asosab): listed as female
- Brazil (IBGE, 2022): listed as female
- Estonia (Statistics Estonia): listed as female
(measured from records)Officially recorded in 31 countries · latest register: Guyana, 2025
/meɾlin/(machine-generated) Spanish · model-generated
Merlyn is a given name used for both men and women, depending on the country, written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the Philippines than in any other country.
- PHPhilippines≈1 in 1.5K(inferred from the name graph)
- HNHonduras≈1 in 3.7K
- GYGuyana1 in 7K
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.
- Philippines (inferred from the name graph)
- Record sources
- 284 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 1.5K (inferred from the name graph)
≈77,000 people, est.
corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling
strongest: highest-authority source
Philippines, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin
No verified etymology recorded for this name yet — the entries below are drawn from usage statistics and the name graph.
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world
(measured from records)Merlyn 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PH Philippines | #361 | ≈77,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.5K | 34K | Merlyn | 80 |
| ID Indonesia | — | ≈11,000 est. | ≈1 in 26K | — | Merlyn | 74 |
| US United States | — | 3,737 | 1 in 89K | 2.4K | Merlyn | 284 |
| HN Honduras | #418 | ≈2,900 est. | ≈1 in 3.7K | — | Merlyn | 16 |
| IN India | — | ≈2,400 est. | ≈1 in 599K | — | Merlyn | 71 |
| SV El Salvador | #885 | ≈680 est. | ≈1 in 9.3K | — | Merlyn | 15 |
| EE Estonia | — | ≈220 est. | ≈1 in 6.4K | 103 | Merlyn | 16 |
| GY Guyana | — | 107 | 1 in 7K | 107 | — | 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: Top 500 First Names in the Philippines (PSA FOI response, tracking; Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; Guyana — Official List of Electors July 2025; Statistics Estonia — per-name Population Register counts (nimed). 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 recorded senses
(measured from records)Merlyn is also recorded in one other lexicon, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In Welsh, male pony
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Notable people with this name
(measured from records)- Merlyn Phillipsb. 1896CACanadian ice hockey player (1896-1978)
- Merlyn Myerb. 1900AUAustralian activist
- Merlyn Oliver Evansb. 1910GBBritish painter (1910-1973)
- Cairo Dixonb. 1911not in their usual nameAustralian rules footballer
- Merlyn Reesb. 1920GBBritish politician (1920-2006)
- Merle Anthonyb. 1926USnot in their usual nameAmerican baseball umpire
- Merlyn Mantleb. 1932USAmerican writer
- Merlyn Ecerb. 1955TRTurkish film director (born 1955)
- Merlyn Mletsinb. 1983EEEstonian association football player (born 1983)
- Merlyn Uuskülab. 1984EEEstonian singer and composer (born 1984)
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)48 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 31 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 2.4K | #4,823 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 1.4K | #4,823 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1930 | 137 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1931 | 128 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1934 | 114 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1927 | 114 | — |
| GY Guyana | Guyana — Official List of Electors July 2025 | 2025 | 107 | #487 |
| EE Estonia | Statistics Estonia — per-name Population Register counts (nimed) | — | 103 | #716 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 7 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 6 | — |
| EE Estonia | Siseministeerium — population register name list 2023 | 2023 | — | — |
Reference works 1
- 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
- Is Merlyn a male or female name?
- Merlyn is used for both men and women, depending on the country. National registers that list names by sex disagree: United States (Census Bureau, 2020): listed under both sexes; Venezuela (asosab): listed as female; Brazil (IBGE, 2022): listed as female; Estonia (Statistics Estonia): listed as female. We don't publish a percentage split.
- How do you pronounce Merlyn?
- In Spanish /meɾlin/. Transcriptions are machine-generated except where a dictionary is named.
- What are other forms of the name Merlyn?
- In the etymology graph, Merlin and Myrddin are forms of the same name in other languages.
- In which country does Merlyn have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 77 thousand people named Merlyn in the Philippines, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled merlyn.
- How common is the name Merlyn?
- In the United States, the national register counted 3,737 people named Merlyn in 2020, about 1 in 89 thousand residents.
- How common is Merlyn compared with other names?
- In the Philippines, Merlyn is the 361st most common given name of 486,299 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Merlyn?
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/merlynThe 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, “Merlyn” — the 361st most common given name in Philippines. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.