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Marie vs Martinus

American parents have registered 542,270 Maries since 1880, against 29 Martinuses. Marie is still ahead, with 474 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Marie Martinus

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 1993, when Marie had 1,054 and Martinus had 6.

Side by side

  Marie Martinus
Total US births 542,27029
Most in one year 12,7747
Babies in 2025 474under 5
Estimated living today 179,00030
Median age today 6643
Peak year 19201982
Best rank 13th girls5,003rd boys
Rank in 2025 617thunranked
First recorded 18801970
Girls / boys 540,077 / 2,1930 / 29

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 Martinuses are over 43. That is 23 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 Martinus
Norway 12,308325

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 Martinus.