Humanverse

Marchelle vs Mark

American parents have registered 1,366,672 Marks since 1880, against 1,643 Marchelles. Mark is still ahead, with 1,416 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Marchelle against Mark, 1880 to 2025 0 15k 30k 45k 60k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Marchelle Mark

Each line is every baby given the name that year, girls and boys added together — the only count that means the same thing for both names. A line breaks where the name fell below five babies in a year — the point at which the SSA stops publishing it — rather than being drawn through a figure nobody published. A single published year in a gap shows as a dot.

Who was ahead

Mark has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1880 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 2016, when Marchelle had 8 and Mark had 2,066.

Side by side

  Marchelle Mark
Total US births 1,6431,366,672
Most in one year 6458,860
Babies in 2025 under 51,416
Estimated living today 1,5001.1 million
Median age today 5359
Peak year 19631960
Best rank 1,392nd girls6th boys
Rank in 2025 unranked244th
First recorded 19471880
Girls / boys 1,643 / 04,496 / 1,362,176

A rank is a position within one sex’s list for one year, so the two rank rows are not subtracted from one another and the winning column is not marked on them. The living figure is a life-table estimate, not a count.

Which name is older

Half of the Marks alive today are over 59; half the Marchelles are over 53. That is 6 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Where each one is strongest

How much commoner the name is in that state than it is nationally, from births recorded since 1910.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

Social Security Administration birth records, 1880–2025, public domain. Full histories: Marchelle and Mark.