Given name · also Turkish
Melih
“beautiful, graceful, elegant”
Melih is a masculine given name from Ottoman Turkish, ultimately from Arabic. It is used in Turkish.
Original TurkishMeliha
Meaning & origin
What it means
Melih goes back to Arabic مَلِيح, meaning “beautiful, graceful, elegant.”
Adapted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Where it comes from
Melih comes from Ottoman Turkish, and ultimately from Arabic.
Adapted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0)
How it developed
From Ottoman Turkish ملیح (melih), from Arabic مَلِيح (“beautiful, graceful, elegant”); its root is Arabic م ل ح.
Adapted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0)
The story
Published U.S. birth records include this spelling as early as 2007. This is the earliest published observation available here, rather than a date for the name’s origin.
From dated birth records
Melih through the years
- Babies since 1880
- 41
- 41 boys · 0 girls
- Most popular year
- 2007
- 6 babies
- 2025
- 0
- Outside the ranked list
- 2021–25 vs 2016–20
- —
- Too few births to compare
By the numbers
The most recent published U.S. birth count for boys is 6 in 2017. Later missing counts do not mean the name went unused. Published U.S. population figures for this spelling include 224 as a first name in 2020.
From Social Security birth records and U.S. Census name counts for this exact spelling. Other spellings are counted separately.
Melih’s family of names
In Turkish usage, Melih has a feminine form in MELIHA.
The ring: across languages.
Across languages 1
Equivalents and cognates in other languages, plus older forms it grew from.
People named Melih
- Melih Cevdet AndayTurkish poet and writer (1915–2002)
- Melih MahmutoğluTurkish basketball player (born 1990)
- Melih AbdulhayoğluAmerican technologist and entrepreneurborn 1968
- Melih İbrahimoğluTurkish-Austrian association football player (born 2000)
- Melih EsenbelTurkish diplomat and statesperson (1915–1995)
- Melih EkenerTurkish actor (born 1965)
- Melih OkutanTurkish association football player (born 1996)
- Melih KotancaTurkish association football player (1915–1986)
- Melih BuluTurkish academic and statesperson (born 1970)
Listed by how widely each person is written about, which says nothing about the name itself.
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