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
Census
Marry in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 2,897 people with the first name Marry, which placed it at #5,755 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
#5,755
National first-name rank
People counted
2.9K
2,897 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
1.0
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
57.4% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Marry
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Marry is White at 57.4%. The next largest groups are Black (16.8%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (11.3%). 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 Marry 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 Marry at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White57.4% · 1,663
- Black or African American16.8% · 486
- Asian and Pacific Islander11.3% · 328
- Hispanic or Latino10.8% · 312
- Two or more races2.7% · 78
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.0% · 30
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.
How common was Marry in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 2,897 people with the name Marry, or 0.96 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #5,755 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 Marry 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 Marry?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Marry leans strongly female. 2,849 people counted with this name were female (98.1%), compared with 56 male bearers (1.9%). 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 Marry?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Marry is White at 57.4%. The next largest groups are Black (16.8%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (11.3%). 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 Marry most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Marry in the 2020 Census, accounting for 57.4% (1,663 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 Marry in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
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.
Is Marry still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Marry 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 Marry 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 Americans are named Marry?
See how many Americans are named Marry on HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site built around that single question.