as a First Name
From the Greek word melissa ‘honey bee’. It is the name of the good witch who releases Rogero from the power of the bad witch Alcina in Ariosto's narrative poem Orlando Furioso (1532). The name was fairly popular in the 1990s, along with other girls’ names sharing the same first syllable.
| 45th in the U.S. for 2011 |
Nicknames & variations
Quick facts
- Hundreds of thousands
- of people in the U.S have this name
- 933,467
- to be exact (as of February 2011)
- Kentucky
- has the most people named Melissa per capita
- 1979
- marked the height of its popularity
99.87%
0.13%
2%
55+
55+
62%
30-54
30-54
26%
13-29
13-29
9%
0-12
0-12
Top state populations
U.S. Distribution Map
