Marie
A feminine French name derived from the Hebrew word for "bitter" or "beloved".
Name Census estimates that about 158,012 living Americans carry the first name Marie. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Marie today is around 61 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Marie births was 1920 (12,774 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Marie. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
For a British comparison, Name Census UK has a UK baby-name profile for Marie with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Although Marie is used almost entirely for girls, the SSA data does show 2,193 boys registered with the name since 1880.
- • Compared to the 1920s, recent registration numbers for Marie have dropped to less than 5% of what they once were.
People living today
158K
~ 1 in 2,169 Americans
Peak year
1920
12,774 babies that year
Average age
61
years old
1996 SSA rank
#639
Tracked since 1880
Census
Marie in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 264,229 people with the first name Marie, which placed it at #204 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#204
National first-name rank
People counted
264K
264,229 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
87.5
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
62.4% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Marie
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Marie is White at 62.4%. The next largest groups are Black (23.4%) and Hispanic (8.6%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Marie described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Marie at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White62.4% · 164,938
- Black or African American23.4% · 61,778
- Hispanic or Latino8.6% · 22,597
- Asian and Pacific Islander2.8% · 7,348
- Two or more races2.1% · 5,525
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.8% · 2,043
Gender
Gender distribution for Marie
Out of the 541,788 babies given the name Marie since 1880, 99.6% were registered as female. The name sits firmly on the female side of the spectrum, with only a handful of male registrations across the entire dataset.
Marie as a male name
- Ranked #8,602 in 1996
- 6 male births in 1996
- Peak: 1926 (55 births)
Marie as a female name
- Ranked #639 in 2024
- 461 female births in 2024
- Peak: 1920 (12,743 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Marie appears almost entirely female. Of the 264,225 people counted with this name, 99.8% were female and only a very small share were male.
Popularity
Marie: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Marie from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 15 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1920s, with 110,955 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1920s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Marie by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Marie during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
| Decade | Male | Female | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1880s | 21 | 8,490 | 8,511 |
| 1890s | 88 | 25,853 | 25,941 |
| 1900s | 136 | 37,091 | 37,227 |
| 1910s | 280 | 92,086 | 92,366 |
| 1920s | 391 | 110,564 | 110,955 |
| 1930s | 347 | 65,803 | 66,150 |
| 1940s | 226 | 57,521 | 57,747 |
| 1950s | 153 | 49,266 | 49,419 |
| 1960s | 146 | 34,808 | 34,954 |
| 1970s | 169 | 18,113 | 18,282 |
| 1980s | 195 | 16,542 | 16,737 |
| 1990s | 41 | 9,823 | 9,864 |
| 2000s | 0 | 6,149 | 6,149 |
| 2010s | 0 | 5,095 | 5,095 |
| 2020s | 0 | 2,391 | 2,391 |
Geography
Where Maries live
The SSA's state-level files cover 51 states and territories. New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois recorded the most babies named Marie, while Wyoming, Nevada, Alaska recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 9,149 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Marie
The name Marie has roots dating back to ancient times, originating from the Hebrew name Miryam, which was likely derived from the Egyptian word "mr," meaning "beloved." The name was later Latinized to Maria and eventually evolved into the French form Marie.
In the New Testament, Marie is the name given to the mother of Jesus Christ. This association with the Virgin Mary played a significant role in the widespread popularity and adoption of the name throughout Christian cultures across Europe and beyond.
Early recorded examples of the name Marie can be found in various historical documents from the Middle Ages. One of the earliest notable bearers of the name was Marie de Champagne, a highly influential French noblewoman and patron of literature in the late 12th century.
Throughout history, the name Marie has been borne by numerous influential and famous individuals. Queen Marie Antoinette of France (1755-1793), whose extravagant lifestyle and alleged quote, "Let them eat cake," became a symbol of the excesses of the French monarchy, is perhaps one of the most well-known figures with this name.
Another notable Marie was Marie Curie (1867-1934), a pioneering physicist and chemist who conducted groundbreaking research on radioactivity and became the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, as well as the first person to win the Nobel Prize twice.
In the literary world, Marie de France (flourished around 1200) was a renowned French poet and fabulist who wrote extensively in the Anglo-Norman language, contributing significantly to the development of the French literary tradition.
Marie Antoinette Leclerc (1785-1817), better known as Madame LeClerc, was a Haitian revolutionary leader who played a crucial role in the Haitian Revolution, fighting against French colonialism and slavery.
Marie Équilly (1797-1865), also known as Jeanne Jugan, was a French Catholic nun who founded the religious congregation of the Little Sisters of the Poor, dedicated to caring for the elderly and destitute.
Notable bearers
Famous people named Marie
People
Marie + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Marie as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with M
Other first names starting with M with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Marie: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Marie?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 158,012 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Marie going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 2,169 US residents.
Is Marie a common name?
We classify Marie as "Common". It ranks above 99.7% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 541,788 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Marie most popular?
The single biggest year for Marie was 1920, when 12,774 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Marie is about 61 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Marie in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 264,229 people with the name Marie, or 87.48 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #204 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Marie in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Marie?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Marie appears almost entirely female. Of the 264,225 people counted with this name, 99.8% were female and only a very small share were male. The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Marie?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Marie is White at 62.4%. The next largest groups are Black (23.4%) and Hispanic (8.6%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Marie most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Marie in the 2020 Census, accounting for 62.4% (164,938 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Marie in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Marie a female name?
Yes, 99.6% of people registered as Marie in the SSA data are female. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Is Marie still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Marie in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Marie can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.
How many people have the name Marie?
For a faster, more casual read, check HowManyOfMe.org — our sister site built around that single question.