Humanverse

Marie vs Martin

American parents have registered 542,270 Maries since 1880, against 317,037 Martins. But in 2025 it was Martin that was commoner, 1,009 babies to 474.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Marie against Martin, 1880 to 2025 0 4k 8k 12k 16k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Marie Martin

Each line is every baby given the name that year, girls and boys added together — the only count that means the same thing for both names. A line breaks where the name fell below five babies in a year — the point at which the SSA stops publishing it — rather than being drawn through a figure nobody published. A single published year in a gap shows as a dot.

Who was ahead

Of the 146 years in which either name was published, Marie for 75 years and Martin for 71 years. The lead changed hands once.

Side by side

  Marie Martin
Total US births 542,270317,037
Most in one year 12,7746,091
Babies in 2025 4741,009
Estimated living today 179,000200,000
Median age today 6653
Peak year 19201963
Best rank 13th girls62nd boys
Rank in 2025 617th335th
First recorded 18801880
Girls / boys 540,077 / 2,1931,476 / 315,561

A rank is a position within one sex’s list for one year, so the two rank rows are not subtracted from one another and the winning column is not marked on them. The living figure is a life-table estimate, not a count.

Which name is older

Half of the Maries alive today are over 66; half the Martins are over 53. That is 13 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Where each one is strongest

How much commoner the name is in that state than it is nationally, from births recorded since 1910.

Both names abroad

Countries whose statistics office publishes both names, so the comparison can be made somewhere other than the United States.

Country Marie Martin
France 2,256,97573,180
Norway 12,30822,540
Austria 12,60421,354
Ireland 7,78018,593
Denmark 11,80314,462
Belgium 15,1045,049
Scotland 1,9279,770
England and Wales 1,8456,002
New Zealand 2,5824,260
Italy 1,1714,271
Switzerland 1,8811,964
Poland 2942,266
Northern Ireland 63640

Every spelling a country files separately is added together, over whatever years that country publishes — which is not the same range in any two of them, so read the columns against each other and not the rows.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

Social Security Administration birth records, 1880–2025, public domain. Full histories: Marie and Martin.