How Many People Are Named May?
people named May are alive in the United States today (estimate)
About 1 in 32,071 people in the US has this name
Based on 50,099 babies named May in Social Security records from 1880 to 2025, and the share of each birth year still alive in 2025.
Popularity Rank
💎 Rare
Peak Year
991 births
Trend
Stable (last 10 years)
📖 Name Origin & Meaning
Meaning:
Derived from the name of the month of May, which derives from Maia, the name of a Roman goddess. May is also another name of the hawthorn flower. It is also used as a diminutive of MARY, MARGARET or MABEL.
Source of the meaning, origin, pronunciation and related names: Behind the Name.
Same Sound, Other Spellings
These names are pronounced like May in English. Counting May and these spellings together, about 37,275 people alive in the US have the name.
⚧ Gender Distribution
Of the babies given the name May, 98.5% were girls and 1.5% were boys.
👥 Age Distribution
The average person named May alive today is about 48 years old, and 41% are 60 or older. Half of them were between 22 and 74 in 2025.
📈 Popularity Over Time
May first appears in the records in 1880 and was given most often in 1919, to 991 babies. In 2025, 183 babies got the name.
Babies given the name each year, 1880 to 2025
🏆 Rank History
May never made the top 10 girls' names. Its best rank was #57, in 1880 and 1883, and it was in the top 100 for 22 years, 1880 to 1901. In 2025 it ranked #1,233.
| Girls | |
|---|---|
| Rank in 2025 | #1,233 |
| Best rank | #57 (1880 and 1883) |
| Years in the top 100 | 22 (1880 to 1901) |
| Rank in its biggest decade | #227 in the 1920s |
📍 State-Wise Distribution
People named May alive today, by the state where they were born (estimate; state records start in 1910).
More people named May were born in California than in any other state: about 1,606 of those alive today. Compared with the national rate in the same years, May was given 6.4 times as often in Hawaii, 2.2 times in California and 2.2 times in Mississippi.
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