Murilo
Meaning
wall, fortified
The story
Murilo is a Brazilian first name built from a Spanish surname: Murillo, traditionally read as little wall, from muro, though one reference argues instead for Basque muino, hill, so the wall has a rival. The surname's most famous carrier was the Baroque painter Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, who, fittingly for a name about inheritance, took it from his grandmother rather than his father. As a given name it is Brazil's project: the poet Murilo Mendes, born 1901, became a forerunner of Brazilian surrealism, and the actor Murilo Benício carried it worldwide in O Clone. The census curve is a rocket: 27,182 born in the 1990s, 45,228 in the 2000s, 74,244 in the 2010s, for 200,096 in all and a median age of twelve. The American record barely knows it: 98 boys ever. A wall or a hill, whichever it is, Brazil is building with it.
Popularity, 1890–2024
Shape drawn from US Social Security baby-name records. Murilo has stayed rare in US records the whole time: no peak decade to name.
Popularity in Brazil
200,096 people · the #161 first name in Brazil · about 1 in 1,015 · median age 12
Among people named Murilo living in Brazil at the 2022 census, more were born in the 2010s than in any other decade.
The census also counted 30,411 born between 2020 and August 2022, too recent a span to chart.
Source: IBGE, Censo Demográfico 2022
The Murilo deep dive
Whether you’re naming a baby or exploring your own name’s history, this is a personal letter, not a list: where Murilo 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 Murilo fits with your family’s names and surname.
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