May
Meaning and origin
From English May.
Source: Wiktionary, Swedish entry for May (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Popularity in Sweden
Among newborns, May has been falling over the last few years. Its best year between 1998 and 2022 was 2015. The figures are for this exact spelling; other spellings of the name are counted on their own.
Years with fewer than two babies (fewer than ten before 2004) show as zero in the chart and as – in the table.
Show the figures
| Year | Girls |
|---|---|
| 1998 | – |
| 1999 | – |
| 2000 | – |
| 2001 | – |
| 2002 | – |
| 2003 | – |
| 2004 | – |
| 2005 | 2 |
| 2006 | 3 |
| 2007 | – |
| 2008 | – |
| 2009 | – |
| 2010 | 4 |
| 2011 | 3 |
| 2012 | 2 |
| 2013 | – |
| 2014 | 4 |
| 2015 | 6 |
| 2016 | 4 |
| 2017 | 6 |
| 2018 | 3 |
| 2019 | 4 |
| 2020 | 2 |
| 2021 | 2 |
| 2022 | 3 |
Everyone registered in Sweden on 31 December with this as the first name they use.
Show the figures
| Year | Women and girls |
|---|---|
| 1999 | 1,996 |
| 2000 | 1,966 |
| 2001 | 1,936 |
| 2002 | 1,905 |
| 2003 | 1,872 |
| 2004 | 1,829 |
| 2005 | 1,772 |
| 2006 | 1,744 |
| 2007 | 1,720 |
| 2008 | 1,707 |
| 2009 | 1,670 |
| 2010 | 1,637 |
| 2011 | 1,606 |
| 2012 | 1,552 |
| 2013 | 1,526 |
| 2014 | 1,498 |
| 2015 | 1,493 |
| 2016 | 1,490 |
| 2017 | 1,473 |
| 2018 | 1,439 |
| 2019 | 1,416 |
| 2020 | 1,391 |
May in a sentence
- Hej! Jag heter May.Hi! My name is May.
- Har du träffat May? Hon började jobba här i måndags.Have you met May? She started working here on Monday.
- Vet du om May kommer på festen på lördag?Do you know if May is coming to the party on Saturday?
- Mays mamma är lärare.May's mum is a teacher.
Swedish shows possession with a plain -s and no apostrophe: Mays mamma is May's mum.
Related names and other spellings
More names
Questions about May
How do you pronounce May in Swedish?
Press Listen at the top of the page to hear May from a native speaker's recording.
What does the name May mean?
From English May.
How popular is May in Sweden?
3 babies were named May in 2022. In 2020, 1,391 people in Sweden had May as the first name they go by. Among newborns the name has been falling lately and peaked in 2015 in the years SCB covers (1998–2022).
Popularity figures: Statistics Sweden (SCB), name statistics (BE0001) from the Statistical Database, released as open data under CC0. Each spelling is counted as its own name, as SCB does. SCB's open name statistics end with babies named in 2022 and the population on 31 December 2020; SCB stopped producing name statistics in 2024 and now points to the Swedish Tax Agency (Skatteverket) for newer figures.
Origins, IPA and recordings: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0), via kaikki.org; recordings from Lingua Libre on Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA). Lingolib is not affiliated with SCB or Wiktionary. Sources last checked 7 October 2026.