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Mark vs Maryann

American parents have registered 1,366,672 Marks since 1880, against 63,005 Maryanns. Mark is still ahead, with 1,416 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Mark Maryann

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, Mark for 139 years and Maryann for 7 years. The lead changed hands 2 times.

Side by side

  Mark Maryann
Total US births 1,366,67263,005
Most in one year 58,8602,055
Babies in 2025 1,416114
Estimated living today 1.1 million42,000
Median age today 5967
Peak year 19601943
Best rank 6th boys135th girls
Rank in 2025 244th1,769th
First recorded 18801880
Girls / boys 4,496 / 1,362,17662,953 / 52

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 Maryanns alive today are over 67; half the Marks are over 59. That is 8 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 Mark Maryann
Ireland 28,60740
Scotland 19,84363
England and Wales 11,489224
France 2,2855

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: Mark and Maryann.