Entry № 6785 · Welsh origin

Meredith Meredith — Meaning, Origin & Baby Name Popularity

/ MER-eh-dith /
Gender
Girl
Origin
Welsh
Meaning
"Great ruler, lord of the sea"
Syllables
3
First recorded
Medieval (Welsh)

A name that means "great ruler, lord of the sea".

Meredith comes from the Old Welsh Maredudd — composed of mawr (great) and iudd (lord) — meaning "great lord" or "great ruler." It was originally a male Welsh name; in modern English use it is predominantly female.

Meredith has been continuously in the U.S. top 500 since the 1950s. The character Meredith Grey on Grey's Anatomy (2005 onward) has kept the name in popular memory for two decades. Today it sits in the U.S. top 600.

Great ruler. A Welsh classic, now female.

The name in its native script.

Meredith
Transliteration
Meredith
Pronunciation
/ ˈmɛr.ə.dɪθ /
Root
Grammatical form

Where Meredith stands.

Meredith does not currently appear in the US Social Security Administration's top 1,000 girls' names, so we don't publish a US rank or birth count for it. That says nothing about the name's standing elsewhere in the world — only that it sits outside the ranked US data we rely on.

Merediths before her.

Real people
Meredith Vieira
American journalist.
born 1953
Meredith Brooks
American singer.
born 1958
In fiction
Meredith Grey
Heroine of Grey's Anatomy.
ABC, 2005 onward

Names connected to Meredith.

The number behind Meredith.

1

The Leader

In Pythagorean numerology the letters of Meredith reduce to 1, The Leader. This is a traditional interpretive system, not a factual claim about the name.