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Girl · Spanish (Latin merces)
Mercedes
Say it: mer-THEH-des
Meaning
Spanish 'mercies', from Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes, Our Lady of Mercy, patron of the Mercedarian order that ransomed captives.
Certainscholars agree on this meaning.
Widespread in Spain in the 19th and 20th centuries; Barcelona's city festival, La Mercè, honours the same title.
Its wave through time
Fading since the 1990s
In the United States
- 45,708 babies given this name since 1880
- At its height in 1993, about 1 in 1,000 girls
- 171 babies in 2020
Through the ages
Used by
The family of the name
Other spellings: Merche
| Catalan | Mercè |
|---|---|
| Portuguese | Mercês |
Famous bearers
- Mercedes of Orléans, queen of Spain
- Mercedes Jellinek, whose name was given to the Mercedes car
- Mercedes Sosa, Argentine singer
Names worth a look
Where this comes from
- Calendars of saints and name days
- National birth statistics of European countries source
- Parish baptism registers
- Colonial records of the Americas
- National census records of the 19th and 20th centuries
- United States Social Security birth records, 1880 to today source
Meanings and histories are compiled from the study of names and their languages and checked by a second review.
Meanings and histories are drawn from the study of names and their languages, each with a confidence rating; popularity figures come from official birth records. Name histories are a living field: if you know of a correction, we would be glad to hear it.