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Marie vs Marlowe

American parents have registered 542,270 Maries since 1880, against 6,467 Marlowes. But in 2025 it was Marlowe that was commoner, 611 babies to 474.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Marie Marlowe

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

Of the 146 years in which either name was published, Marie for 144 years and Marlowe for 2 years. The lead changed hands once.

Side by side

  Marie Marlowe
Total US births 542,2706,467
Most in one year 12,774611
Babies in 2025 474611
Estimated living today 179,0005,800
Median age today 667
Peak year 19202025
Best rank 13th girls523rd girls
Rank in 2025 617th523rd
First recorded 18801912
Girls / boys 540,077 / 2,1934,805 / 1,662

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 Marlowes are over 7. That is 59 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.

Both names abroad

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

Country Marie Marlowe
France 2,256,97515
Ireland 7,78020
England and Wales 1,845870
Scotland 1,92740
Switzerland 1,88110
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 Marlowe.