Humanverse

Maria vs Marketa

American parents have registered 570,389 Marias since 1880, against 673 Marketas. Maria is still ahead, with 2,893 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Maria against Marketa, 1880 to 2025 0 3k 6k 9k 12k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Maria Marketa

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

Maria 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 1984, when Maria had 6,222 and Marketa had 44.

Side by side

  Maria Marketa
Total US births 570,389673
Most in one year 10,19744
Babies in 2025 2,893under 5
Estimated living today 466,000640
Median age today 4541
Peak year 19641984
Best rank 41st girls2,227th girls
Rank in 2025 87thunranked
First recorded 18801954
Girls / boys 566,111 / 4,278673 / 0

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 Marias alive today are over 45; half the Marketas are over 41. That is 4 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Both names abroad

Countries whose statistics office publishes both names, so the comparison can be made somewhere other than the United States.

Country Maria Marketa
England and Wales 17,82613

Every spelling a country files separately is added together, over whatever years that country publishes — which is not the same range in any two of them, so read the columns against each other and not the rows.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

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