Given name
Melyssa
“bee”
Melyssa is a feminine given name from Ancient Greek. It is used in French.
Meaning & origin
What it means
Melyssa goes back to Ancient Greek μέλισσα, meaning “bee.”
Adapted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0)
The story
Published U.S. birth records include this spelling as early as 1965. This is the earliest published observation available here, rather than a date for the name’s origin.
From dated birth records
Melyssa through the years
- Babies since 1880
- 2,023
- 0 boys · 2,023 girls
- Most popular year
- 1989
- 121 babies
- 2025
- 0
- Outside the ranked list
- 2021–25 vs 2016–20
- −71%
- Cooling
By the numbers
The most recent published U.S. birth count for girls is 7 in 2023. Later missing counts do not mean the name went unused. Its largest published annual count for girls was 121 in 1989. Published U.S. population figures for this spelling include 1,827 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.
Melyssa’s family of names
In English usage, Melyssa has a conventional equivalent in the German form Melitta.
Inner ring: spellings · middle: nicknames and forms · outer: across languages.
Nicknames & forms 1
Diminutives, pet forms, short forms and variants used alongside the name.
Spellings & scripts 2
The same name written differently, including transliterations into other scripts.
Across languages 1
Equivalents and cognates in other languages, plus older forms it grew from.
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