Mei is a girl's name of Japanese origin meaning “sleeping dragon.” In 2024 it was given to 101 girls in the United States.
Mei at a glance
Gender
Girl name
Origin
Japanese
Meaning
“sleeping dragon”
Pronunciation
/meɪ/
About the name Mei
Mei belongs to the Japanese tradition. Its meaning — “sleeping dragon” — is the sense carried by its Japanese roots, and it is the meaning we verified against published sources for this page.
In the United States, Mei first appears in Social Security records in 1947. It climbed to its best-ever rank of #1960 in 2024, and in 2024 101 babies received the name — 1,741 in total since 1880. Those are the official counts, not estimates.
Meaning and origin for this page were checked against this source. US popularity figures are from the Social Security Administration's public baby-names data. England & Wales figures are from the Office for National Statistics. If you spot an error, write to [email protected] — accuracy is the whole point of this site, and corrections are made fast.