Maryam
A feminine name of Arabic origin meaning "bitterness" or "submission".
Name Census estimates that about 12,766 living Americans carry the first name Maryam. It sits at #390 in the overall ranking, outside the top 50 but still well-represented. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Maryam today is around 15 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Maryam births was 2024 (806 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Maryam. 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 Maryam with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Maryam is a relatively new arrival in the SSA data. The average bearer is just 15 years old, meaning it gained most of its traction in the last two decades.
People living today
13K
~ 1 in 26,849 Americans
Peak year
2024
806 babies that year
Average age
15
years old
2024 SSA rank
#390
Tracked since 1946
Census
Maryam in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 19,210 people with the first name Maryam, which placed it at #1,642 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
#1,642
National first-name rank
People counted
19K
19,210 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
6.4
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
53.5% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Maryam
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Maryam is White at 53.5%. The next largest groups are Asian/Pacific Islander (24.2%) and Black (11.0%). 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 Maryam 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 Maryam at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White53.5% · 10,269
- Asian and Pacific Islander24.2% · 4,651
- Black or African American11.0% · 2,105
- Two or more races8.2% · 1,583
- Hispanic or Latino3.0% · 571
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.2% · 31
Popularity
Maryam: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Maryam from the 1940s through to the 2020s, spanning 8 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2010s, with 4,932 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2010s peak, Maryam remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Maryam 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 Maryam during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Maryams live
The SSA's state-level files cover 35 states and territories. New York, California, Texas recorded the most babies named Maryam, while Utah, New Mexico, North Dakota recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 313 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Maryam
The name Maryam has its origins in the Hebrew language and is derived from the ancient Semitic root word "mrym." This root word is believed to have meant "bitter," "beloved," or "wished for child." The name's earliest known use dates back to the 1st century BCE, where it appears as the name of Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ, in the New Testament of the Bible.
Maryam is the Arabic transliteration of the name Mary and is widely used in the Islamic world. It holds significant religious and cultural significance in Islam, as it is the name of the Virgin Mary, who is revered as a highly respected figure in the Quran. The Quran mentions her name more than 30 times, making her one of the most frequently mentioned women in the holy book.
One of the earliest recorded examples of the name Maryam can be found in the Quran itself, where it is used to refer to the mother of Jesus. In the Quran, Maryam is portrayed as a pious and virtuous woman who was chosen by God to give birth to the Prophet Jesus.
Throughout history, there have been many notable figures who bore the name Maryam. One of the most famous was Maryam al-Qibtiyya (c. 628-637 CE), an Egyptian Coptic Christian who became one of the wives of the Prophet Muhammad. Another notable Maryam was Maryam al-Astrabadi (c. 1005-1088 CE), a Persian poet and scholar who was renowned for her knowledge of Islamic jurisprudence and literature.
In the medieval period, Maryam al-Muʿtasimiyya (d. 1224 CE) was a prominent Sufi mystic and teacher who established several religious schools in Damascus. Maryam al-Samarqandiyya (d. 1459 CE) was a notable scholar and writer from Central Asia who authored works on Islamic theology and philosophy.
More recently, Maryam Mirzakhani (1977-2017) was an Iranian mathematician who became the first woman to win the prestigious Fields Medal, often considered the Nobel Prize of mathematics, in 2014.
People
Maryam + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Maryam 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
Maryam: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Maryam?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 12,766 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Maryam 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 26,849 US residents.
Is Maryam a common name?
We classify Maryam as "Uncommon". It ranks above 98% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 12,974 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Maryam most popular?
The single biggest year for Maryam was 2024, when 806 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Maryam is about 15 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Maryam in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 19,210 people with the name Maryam, or 6.36 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #1,642 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 Maryam 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 Maryam?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Maryam appears almost entirely female. Of the 19,209 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 Maryam?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Maryam is White at 53.5%. The next largest groups are Asian/Pacific Islander (24.2%) and Black (11.0%). 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 Maryam most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Maryam in the 2020 Census, accounting for 53.5% (10,269 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 Maryam in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Maryam a female name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Maryam 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 Maryam still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Maryam 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 Maryam 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 Maryam as a first name?
If you just want to know how many people share the name Maryam, HowManyOfMe.org gives you the headline number in one glance.