Humanverse

Margaree vs Mark

American parents have registered 1,366,672 Marks since 1880, against 616 Margarees. Mark is still ahead, with 1,416 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Margaree 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 1928, when Margaree had 22 and Mark had 665.

Side by side

  Margaree Mark
Total US births 6161,366,672
Most in one year 2358,860
Babies in 2025 under 51,416
Estimated living today 1901.1 million
Median age today 7959
Peak year 19341960
Best rank 1,556th girls6th boys
Rank in 2025 unranked244th
First recorded 19121880
Girls / boys 616 / 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 Margarees alive today are over 79; half the Marks are over 59. That is 20 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: Margaree and Mark.