Miriam is a girl's name of Hebrew and Biblical origin meaning “to be bitter.” In 2024 it was given to 1,267 girls in the United States.
Miriam at a glance
Gender
Girl name
Origin
Biblical & Christian
Meaning
“to be bitter”
Pronunciation
/ˈmɪɹi.əm/
Also spelled
Miri an
About the name Miriam
Miriam belongs to the Biblical & Christian tradition. Its meaning — “to be bitter” — is the sense carried by its Hebrew and Biblical roots, and it is the meaning we verified against published sources for this page. It travels in a few spellings: Miri an.
In the United States, Miriam first appears in Social Security records in 1880. It climbed to its best-ever rank of #134 in 1917, and in 2024 1,267 babies received the name — 116,620 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. If you spot an error, write to [email protected] — accuracy is the whole point of this site, and corrections are made fast.
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