girls:
2.3k births since 1915
#3622 (37th percentile)
boys:
9.2k births since 1916
#1225 (73rd percentile)
overall:
11.5k births since 1915
#2456 (68th percentile)
The name Memphis is the #2,456 most popular name of all time in the U.S. on a gender-neutral basis, with a total of 11,517 recorded births since 1915. This represents the 68.3% percentile of name popularity (more popular than 68.3% of all names). For boys, it ranks #1,225 (73.3% percentile) for all time with 9,245 births since 1916. For girls, it ranks #3,622 (36.6% percentile) for all time with 2,272 births since 1915.
Memphis first appeared in U.S. birth records in 1915 (1915 for girls and 1916 for boys). Birth data for Memphis is available in 42 out of the 109 years between 1915 and 2023 (39 years for boys and 27 years for girls). The Social Security Administration only reports birth data for years in which the name was given to at least five children of the same gender.
The name Memphis has been given predominantly to boys, with 80.3% of all recorded births being male. In 2023, 74.7% of babies named Memphis were boys. Interestingly, until around 1916, the name was more popular for girls (100.0% girls from 1915 to 1915), but since then it has been more commonly used for boys (80.3% boys from 1916 to 2023).
For boys, Memphis reached its peak popularity in 2021, achieving the 58.8% percentile (ranked #384) with 409 births per million. The name was most common in 2021, with 409 births per million (ranked 58.8% percentile). Since reaching a low point around 2015, the popularity of this name for boys has been increasing. Currently, Memphis ranks #441 for boys (51.6% percentile) with 333 births per million, which is 81.4% of its peak share of births.
For girls, Memphis reached its peak popularity in 2022, achieving the 25.7% percentile (ranked #712) with 140 births per million. The name was most common in 2022, with 140 births per million (ranked 25.7% percentile). Since reaching a low point around 2000, the popularity of this name for girls has been increasing. Currently, Memphis ranks #745 for girls (21.4% percentile) with 118 births per million, which is 84.5% of its peak share of births.
This chart shows the total number of births per million babies in each year for the name "Memphis".
These names exclude other spelling variations of this name. View all variations of Memphis.
These similar-looking names have spellings that are closest to the spelling of "Memphis", in the sense that there are the fewest number of letter differences between the two spellings. These names exclude other spelling variations of this name. View all variations of Memphis.
Our model has identified 5 different pronunciations for the name Memphis. Click the play button under each pronunciation to hear it spoken aloud.
Our model is 61.0% confident that Memphis is pronounced as MEHM-fihs, which has 2 syllables. The next most likely pronunciation is MEHMP-fuhs, at 10.2% confidence, with 2 syllables.
If none of the pronunciations above sound right to you, could you please check whether any of these related pronunciations should be applied to the name Memphis? These are pronunciations that other similar names use, but which are not currently associated with Memphis. If you think any of these are valid pronunciations for Memphis, please vote using the thumbs up button.
Our confidence scores estimate the likelihood that a particular pronunciation is the most correct for a given name spelling. These scores are derived from pronunciation dictionaries, manual verification, your feedback, and a fine-tuned large language model trained to generate name pronunciations.
For any given spelling, confidence scores across all identified pronunciations sum to 100%. However, these scores don't account for the possibility of valid pronunciations that our model hasn't identified.
The raw pronunciations shown (like M EH1 M F IH0 S) use the ARPAbet phoneme system, a standardized way to represent English speech sounds. Each symbol represents a distinct sound in American English. Visit the ARPAbet Wikipedia page to learn more about these phonetic symbols.
Pronunciation audio is generated by an open source text to speech model that has been customized to adhere to pronunciations provided in ARPAbet format, but sometimes pronunciations that differ subtly will sound identical, particularly if the only difference is the level of emphasis on a syllable or a single vowel sound.
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