Maury
A masculine name of French origin, from the Latin Mauricius meaning "Moor" or "dark-skinned".
Name Census estimates that about 2,008 living Americans carry the first name Maury. It is a predominantly male name (90.7% of registrations). The average person named Maury today is around 53 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Maury births was 1963 (100 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Maury. 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
2.0K
~ 1 in 170,694 Americans
Peak year
1963
100 babies that year
Average age
53
years old
2024 SSA rank
#11,816
Tracked since 1889
Census
Maury in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 2,410 people with the first name Maury, which placed it at #6,611 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
#6,611
National first-name rank
People counted
2.4K
2,410 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.8
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
54.7% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Maury
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Maury is White at 54.7%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (22.2%) and Black (18.2%). 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 Maury 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 Maury at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White54.7% · 1,318
- Hispanic or Latino22.2% · 535
- Black or African American18.2% · 439
- Two or more races2.4% · 57
- Asian and Pacific Islander1.9% · 45
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.7% · 16
Gender
Gender distribution for Maury
Maury leans heavily male at 90.7% of total registrations, but 258 girls have also been registered with the name over the years, giving it a small but present crossover presence.
Maury as a male name
- Ranked #11,816 in 2024
- 6 male births in 2024
- Peak: 1963 (87 births)
Maury as a female name
- Ranked #16,443 in 2006
- 6 female births in 2006
- Peak: 1956 (13 births)
2020 Census snapshot
The 2020 Census sex table shows Maury on both sides of the split. Of the 2,405 people counted with this name, 1,899 were male (79.0%) and 506 were female (21.0%).
Popularity
Maury: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Maury from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 14 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1960s, with 702 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1960s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Maury 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 Maury during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Maurys live
The SSA's state-level files cover 14 states and territories. California, New York, Texas recorded the most babies named Maury, while Missouri, Louisiana, Pennsylvania recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 28 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Maury
The name Maury finds its origins in the Latin name Mauritius, which itself is derived from the Latin word "Maurus," meaning "Moorish" or "dark-skinned." The name Mauritius was initially used to describe people from Mauritania, a region in northwestern Africa that is now part of modern-day Morocco and western Algeria.
The earliest recorded instances of the name Maury can be traced back to the 3rd century CE, when it was used by Saint Maurice, a Roman soldier and leader of the legendary Theban Legion. Saint Maurice and his soldiers were martyred in the late 3rd century for refusing to renounce their Christian faith.
During the Middle Ages, the name Maury gained popularity across Europe, particularly in France and England. One notable bearer of the name was Maurice, Prince of Orange (1567-1625), a prominent military commander during the Eighty Years' War between the Netherlands and Spain.
In the 17th century, the French explorer René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, named the Mississippi River after the French regent, Philippe I, Duke of Orléans, whose middle name was Maury. This helped to further solidify the name's place in history.
Other famous individuals with the name Maury include Maury Maverick (1895-1954), an American politician and member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Texas, and Matthew Fontaine Maury (1806-1873), an American naval officer and pioneering oceanographer known as the "Pathfinder of the Seas."
In the 20th century, Maury Wills (born 1932) was an American professional baseball player who was a key member of the Los Angeles Dodgers' championship teams in the 1960s. Another notable figure was Maury Povich (born 1939), an American television host and news presenter best known for hosting the talk show "Maury."
Notable bearers
Famous people named Maury
People
Maury + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Maury 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
Maury: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Maury?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 2,008 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Maury 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 170,694 US residents.
Is Maury a common name?
We classify Maury as "Rare". It ranks above 93.7% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 2,761 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Maury most popular?
The single biggest year for Maury was 1963, when 100 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Maury is about 53 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Maury in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 2,410 people with the name Maury, or 0.80 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #6,611 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 Maury 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 Maury?
The 2020 Census sex table shows Maury on both sides of the split. Of the 2,405 people counted with this name, 1,899 were male (79.0%) and 506 were female (21.0%). 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 Maury?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Maury is White at 54.7%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (22.2%) and Black (18.2%). 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 Maury most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Maury in the 2020 Census, accounting for 54.7% (1,318 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 Maury in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Maury a male name?
Yes, 90.7% of people registered as Maury in the SSA data are male. 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 Maury still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Maury 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 Maury 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 Maury?
For a quick modern estimate, our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers that in one glance, with the living-bearer count front and centre.