Melina
- Pronunciation
- [Me-li-na]
- Gender
- Female
- Meaning
- Canary Yellow.
- Origin
- Latin
About the Name Melina
Melina descends from the Greek Melina (Μελίνα), derived from meli meaning "honey" — yielding "honey-yellow" or "sweet as honey." The name has been used continuously across Greek and Italian Catholic naming traditions for centuries.
The name's overwhelming modern cultural anchor is Greek actress Melina Mercouri (1920–1994, the iconic Greek actress and politician whose career through Never on Sunday 1960 — for which she won the Best Actress award at the Cannes Film Festival — and her iconic later role as Greek Minister of Culture made her one of the foundational figures of mid-20th-century Greek and international cinema).
Other notable bearers include American actress Melina Kanakaredes (born 1967, the iconic Greek-American actress of NBC's Providence 1999–2002); the contemporary American singer Melina Aldana; and the contemporary fictional Melina of various contemporary novels. Melina's American climb is recent: the name climbed from outside the US top 1000 in 2000 to the US top 300 girls' rank by 2014 and the top 300 since. The name has been driven primarily by Greek-American, Italian-American, and Spanish-American naming. The name's appeal sits in three contemporary American naming preferences: the layered Greek-Italian-Latinate pedigree, the in-built honey-sweetness etymological register, and the popular three-syllable -ina ending family (Melina, Karina, Marina, Adriana). Three flowing syllables, soft consonants, and tonal warmth distinctive to Greek-derived naming. The name reads as both classical-Greek and contemporary American. Common nicknames Mel (the dominant warm short form, casual and warm — also a popular standalone name on its own), Lina (back-end shortening, a popular standalone name), Mela, and the rare Mina each carry distinct registers; the alternate spellings Melina and Melyna have their own SSA tracking. International forms include Melina (essentially identical across Greek/Italian/Spanish), Mélina (French, with accent), and the original Greek Melina.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Melina
US Popularity History (2000–2025)
Annual US births named Melina by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2009 with 681 girls named Melina (girl rank #456 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #660 for girls (434 US births). That's 204 places below its 2009 peak.
Source: US Social Security Administration. Limitations: US birth-certificate data only; names appearing fewer than 5 times in a given year are suppressed for privacy; spelling variants are counted separately. For names that ranked outside the US top 100 before year 2000, only the years they reached the top 100 are shown — the chart may have gaps for less-popular historical names.
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Where in the US Is Melina Most Popular?
Average girl-name rank within each state across 2016–2025 SSA records. A lower number means the name appears closer to the top of that state's girls-name rankings — a per-capita measure that isn't biased toward large states. For Melina the strongest states are California, Connecticut, Massachusetts.
Strongest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | California | #383 | 871 |
| 2 | Connecticut | #416 | 71 |
| 3 | Massachusetts | #450 | 117 |
| 4 | Arizona | #453 | 141 |
| 5 | Nevada | #466 | 34 |
| 6 | New York | #490 | 342 |
| 7 | New Jersey | #506 | 156 |
| 8 | Iowa | #542 | 38 |
| 9 | Illinois | #564 | 180 |
| 10 | Florida | #602 | 264 |
Weakest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | North Carolina | #875 | 53 |
| 2 | Minnesota | #860 | 36 |
| 3 | Ohio | #846 | 81 |
| 4 | Tennessee | #831 | 25 |
| 5 | Georgia | #830 | 61 |
| 6 | Virginia | #807 | 66 |
| 7 | Washington | #790 | 46 |
| 8 | Michigan | #786 | 73 |
| 9 | Oklahoma | #769 | 17 |
| 10 | Missouri | #758 | 38 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Melina in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Variant Forms
Looking for names like Melina?
A dedicated page with 60+ related names — spelling variants, rhymes, alliterations, same-origin matches, and shared meaning concepts — lives at its own URL so each kind of similarity gets a deeper treatment than fits here.
Compare Melina to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Melina against today's most popular girls-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).