Merete
given name · Latin script
Meaning, in Danish: a female given name, medieval form of Margrethe (= Margaret)
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/merəd̥ə/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Merete is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Denmark than in any other country.
- DKDenmark1 in 1.1K(measured from records)
- NONorway1 in 1.1K
- SESweden1 in 28K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- Denmark (measured from records)
- Sources
- 130 (measured from records)
- 1 in 1.1K (inferred from the name graph)
5,409 people
Highest-authority source
Denmark
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
a female given name, medieval form of Margrethe (= Margaret)
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested across 29 languages in the etymology graph.
How Merete is read(measured from records)
Merete is one spelling over 3 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 2 of them. Each row is what a source recorded for that language, beside the share of this name’s records the language holds. No single row is the name’s meaning.
- Danish48%
- Norwegian30%
a female given name of Danish origin
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- English7.9%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Merete in English.
The share is ours — how much of this name’s records each language holds. The sense beside it is the source’s, quoted and credited, including where it names a gender. We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Merete counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
5,409 people counted by Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts). Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: SSB PxWebApi — Persons/Last names by year (StatBank tables 10501/12891); SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population); Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts); Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population); DVV — Etunimitilasto (Finnish given names register); DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup). Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Other recorded senses(measured from records)
Merete is also recorded in 3 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
Danish: vernacular form of MARGARET . Variants: Mereta; Märta; Mette .
as a word
In Spanish, second-person singular voseo imperative of merer combined with te
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Latin, second-person plural present active imperative of mereō
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Merete Bodelsenb. 1907GBDanish art historian
- Merete Mazzarellab. 1945FIFinnish author and literature academic
- Pia Kjærsgaardb. 1947DKnot in their usual nameDanish politician (born 1947)
- Merete Armandb. 1955NONorwegian actress (1955–2017)
- Hanni Toosbuyb. 1957DKnot in their usual nameDanish businesswoman, heiress (Ecco Sko A/S), billionaire
- Merete Morken Andersenb. 1965NONorwegian literary scholar, writer, and writing teacher
- Merete Van Kampb. 1967DKDanish actress-model
- Merete Myklebustb. 1973NOAssociation footballer
- Merete Pedersenb. 1973DKDanish association football player
- Merete Riisagerb. 1976DKDanish politician
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
How to address them(machine-generated)
A formal English salutation is built on the surname, so it needs a full name — on its own, a first name only supports the informal form.
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 24 sources across 11 countries.
Reference works 3
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Ethiopian name tokens (GitHub lehagere/ethiopian-names, 40/60 condominium list)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Merete mean, and where does it come from?
- a female given name, medieval form of Margrethe (= Margaret) Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- What are other forms of the name Merete?
- In the etymology graph, Margaret, Rita and Margarita are forms of the same name in other languages; it is recorded as a short form of Margrethe.
- How do you pronounce Merete?
- A machine transcription gives /merəd̥ə/ (IPA) for Danish.
- Is Merete a male or female name?
- Merete is a female name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
- In which country does Merete have the most bearers?
- In Denmark, the national register counted about 5.4 thousand people named Merete, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled merete.
- Where is Merete most common?
- Merete is densest in Denmark, where the national register counts about 1 in 1.1 thousand people carrying it.
- How common is the name Merete?
- In Denmark, the national register counted 5,409 people named Merete, about 1 in 1.1 thousand residents.
- How common is Merete compared with other names?
- In Denmark, Merete is the 131st most common given name of 23,174 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Merete?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/mereteThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Merete” — the 131st most common given name in Denmark. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.