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Marie vs Marija

American parents have registered 542,270 Maries since 1880, against 519 Marijas. Marie is still ahead, with 474 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Marie against Marija, 1880 to 2025 0 4k 8k 12k 16k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Marie Marija

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

Marie 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 2010, when Marie had 518 and Marija had 20.

Side by side

  Marie Marija
Total US births 542,270519
Most in one year 12,77421
Babies in 2025 474under 5
Estimated living today 179,000510
Median age today 6629
Peak year 19202008
Best rank 13th girls6,350th girls
Rank in 2025 617thunranked
First recorded 18801962
Girls / boys 540,077 / 2,193519 / 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 Maries alive today are over 66; half the Marijas are over 29. That is 37 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 Marie Marija
France 2,256,975110
Norway 12,308369
Ireland 7,78027
Switzerland 1,881330
England and Wales 1,845118
Poland 29432
Northern Ireland 633

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: Marie and Marija.