Melissa comes from the Greek mélissa (μέλισσα), meaning "honey bee." In Greek mythology, Melissa was the nymph who discovered how to collect honey and taught the practice to humans. The Greek root is also why the herb lemon balm — beloved by bees — is called Melissa officinalis.
Melissa was enormously popular in the 1960s and 1970s, peaking at #2 in 1977. Today it sits in the U.S. top 300. The actress Melissa McCarthy and the singer Melissa Etheridge are well-known bearers.
Melissa does not currently appear in the US Social Security Administration's top 1,000 girls' names, so we don't publish a US rank or birth count for it. That says nothing about the name's standing elsewhere in the world — only that it sits outside the ranked US data we rely on.
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In Pythagorean numerology the letters of Melissa reduce to 6, The Nurturer. This is a traditional interpretive system, not a factual claim about the name.