Marlene
Marlene is a girl's name that peaked in 1936, when it was the 39th most popular in the United States. In 2025 it ranked 1,261st. About 83,000 Marlenes are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 69.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Marlene boys named Marlene
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 130,932
- Estimated living today
- 83,000
- Median age today
- 69
- Peak year
- 1936
- Best rank
- 39th
- Rank in 2025
- 1,261st
- First recorded
- 1904
- Girls / boys
- 130,573 / 359
How old the living Marlenes are
born that year still alive today
Of the 130,932 babies given the name since 1904, about 83,000 are alive — 63 in every hundred. Roughly 4,000 of them are children and 49,000 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1956 and half after.
An estimate, not a count. SSA births aged forward through SSA cohort life tables, which know nothing about who left the country or arrived in it — so for a name that mostly came to America rather than being born in it, this is a floor rather than a figure. Where you fall among living Americans.
Where the name comes from
Origin Hebrew
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Marlenes
- Marlene Dietrich (1901–1992)German and American actress and singer
- Marlene Dumas (born 1953)South African painter and draftsperson
- Marlène Jobert (born 1940)French actress and author
- Marlene Favela (born 1976)Mexican model and actress
- Marlene Schmidt (born 1937)German actress
- Marlene Ahrens (1933–2020)Chilean athletics competitor
- Marlène Schiappa (born 1982)French politician and writer
- Marlene Mathews (born 1934)Australian sprinter
People named Marlene with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Marlene is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Marlene is most concentrated in North Dakota (3.5×), South Dakota (2.8×), Montana (2.2×), Minnesota (2.1×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 1936
The most popular girls’ names the year Marlene peaked:
Marlene elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| France girls | Marlène +1 spelling | 32,295 | 74th |
| Austria girls | Marlene | 9,255 | 26th |
| Norway girls | Marlene | 1,095 | 90th |
| Italy girls | Marlene | 661 | — |
| Switzerland girls | Marlene | 321 | 299th |
| England and Wales girls | Marlene | 166 | 1,585th |
| Scotland girls | Marlene | 86 | 249th |
| Ireland girls | Marlene | 69 | 337th |
| Belgium girls | Marlène +1 spelling | 26 | 1,033rd |
Counts come from each country's own records and are not comparable with the US figures above, which cover different years and a different definition of a recorded name. Where a country writes the name several ways, the spellings are added together and the most common is shown. A row marked name registrations is counting something else: Portugal ranks each of a child's two given names separately, so a girl registered Maria Leonor is in both the Maria row and the Leonor row, and that figure is not a number of children.
Marlene: births by region
| Region | Country | Spelling | Births | Share of the region | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| German girls | Switzerland | Marlene | 286 | 0.023% | 213th |
| French girls | Switzerland | Marlene | 27 | 0.006% | 277th |
| Italian girls | Switzerland | Marlene | 8 | 0.012% | 112th |
Parts of a country counted above, not extra births. The share is what makes the regions comparable: they differ in size by a factor of three hundred.
By canton, Marlene is most concentrated in Zurich, where 0.03% of children were given it – 87 of them.
Marlene: rank by region
In 2021, Marlene was among the 10 most common names in 1 region of Italy.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Valle d'Aosta/Vallée d'Aoste | Marlene | 8 | 1 |
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Italy after 10 names – and published nothing after. So a region missing here is one where the name fell outside what was published, not one where it went unused. Places are shared where names tie, and the further down a list a place is, the more names can share it.
Marlene by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin girls | 2017–2023 | 484 | 37th |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Marlene among the living
How many people each country's register counts under the name, rather than how many were given it in any one year. Each register was read on one date, and they are not the same date.
| Country | Spelling | First forename | Any forename |
|---|---|---|---|
| Finland girls | Marlene +2 spellings | 267 | 1,017 |
A count of people on a register – Finland on 4 August 2026 – and not of births, so it cannot be compared with the figures above. Names with very few bearers are withheld, and a dash in the first-forename column means the register would not say rather than that nobody goes by it.
Where Marlene lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 2,455 women called Marlene were living in Spain on 1 January 2025, of every age, born in any year. Where they live is not spread evenly.
Women: the provinces where it is densest
| Province | Spelling | People | Per thousand | Place there |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Santa Cruz de Tenerife | Marlene | 190 | 0.343 | 341 |
| Palmas, Las | Marlene | 122 | 0.207 | 534 |
| Asturias | Marlene | 101 | 0.190 | 504 |
| Ourense | Marlene | 28 | 0.177 | 487 |
| Bizkaia | Marlene | 101 | 0.168 | 564 |
| Balears, Illes | Marlene | 103 | 0.164 | 508 |
Listed in 48 of Spain's 52 provinces. In the other 4 it is either held by fewer than 5 people – the point below which the source withholds a name – or it fell past the 5,000 names the source will print for one province. Neither means nobody there is called it. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.
Related names
Marlene against another name
Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.
Try it on yourself
Source: US Social Security Administration, national and state baby-name files, 1880–2025. Counts include only births registered with the SSA, and names with fewer than five births in a year are not published. The living estimate applies SSA cohort life tables to those births; it counts people born in the United States, so it misses anyone who arrived later and anyone who has left.