Marry
A feminine name from the Hebrew name Miryam, meaning "beloved" or "bitter".
Name Census estimates that about 787 living Americans carry the first name Marry. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Marry today is around 52 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Marry births was 1918 (37 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Marry. 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.
People living today
787
~ 1 in 435,520 Americans
Peak year
1918
37 babies that year
Average age
52
years old
2023 SSA rank
#11,809
Tracked since 1882
Popularity
Marry: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Marry 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 276 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
Marry 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 Marry during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Marrys live
The SSA's state-level files cover 7 states and territories. Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama recorded the most babies named Marry, while Texas, North Carolina, Arkansas recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 15 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Marry
The name Marry is derived from the Hebrew name Miryam, which is believed to have its origins in ancient Egyptian. Miryam is thought to be a combination of the Egyptian words "mer" meaning beloved and "iamu" meaning sea or ocean. The name's earliest known written form was "Maria" in Latin.
In the New Testament of the Bible, Miryam is the name given to the mother of Jesus Christ. This is likely the primary reason for the name's widespread popularity across the Christian world. The name Marry is an anglicized spelling variation that emerged in medieval England around the 12th century.
One of the earliest recorded bearers of the name Marry was Marry Becket, the sister of Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury who was martyred in 1170. Another early recorded example was Marry of Antioch, a 13th-century French crusader and princess.
In the 16th century, Marry I of Scotland, born in 1542, was a famous bearer of the name. She was Queen of Scots from 1542 until her forced abdication in 1567. Marry Tudor, born in 1516, was the younger sister of King Henry VIII of England and became Queen of France through her marriage to Louis XII.
In the 17th century, Marry Wollstonecraft, born in 1759, was an influential British writer and philosopher who advocated for women's rights. Marry Shelley, born in 1797, was a pioneering English novelist best known for the gothic novel Frankenstein.
People
Marry + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Marry 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
Marry: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Marry?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 787 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Marry 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 435,520 US residents.
Is Marry a common name?
We classify Marry as "Very Rare". It ranks above 88.5% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 1,867 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Marry most popular?
The single biggest year for Marry was 1918, when 37 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Marry is about 52 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
Is Marry a female name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Marry 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.
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.