Merritt
Meaning
“English surname from Merriott in Somerset, recorded in the Domesday Book as Meriet, 'boundary gate' in Old English”
The story
Merritt looks like a virtue and is actually a map reference: an English surname from Merriott in Somerset, recorded in the Domesday Book as Meriet, meaning boundary gate in Old English. The merit reading is a happy accident of spelling, and we decline to charge admission for it. As a first name it was a boys' pick first, 650 in the 1910s and 966 in the 1920s, then a long midcentury drift down. The girls' column arrived in earnest in the 1960s and held between 184 and 248 for four straight decades. By the 2000s the columns had crossed, 339 girls to 268 boys; the 2010s made it decisive, 944 to 692; since 2020 it stands 1,101 to 524. A boundary name crossing a boundary is almost too neat, but the figures are the figures. It scans as a surname pick with genuinely old records behind it, and it keeps Everett and Emmett good company.
Popularity, 1890–2024
Shape drawn from US Social Security baby-name records. Merritt peaked in the 2020s.
The Merritt deep dive
Whether you’re naming a baby or exploring your own name’s history, this is a personal letter, not a list: where Merritt truly comes from, how it traveled, and what a century of records reveals. If you have grown a tree on nametree, it also considers how Merritt fits with your family’s names and surname.
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