Marilyn
Marilyn is a girl's name that peaked in 1947, when it was the 29th most popular in the United States. In 2025 it ranked 760th. About 204,000 Marilyns are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 73.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Marilyn boys named Marilyn
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 374,857
- Estimated living today
- 204,000
- Median age today
- 73
- Peak year
- 1947
- Best rank
- 29th
- Rank in 2025
- 760th
- First recorded
- 1899
- Girls / boys
- 373,791 / 1,066
How old the living Marilyns are
born that year still alive today
Of the 374,857 babies given the name since 1899, about 204,000 are alive — 54 in every hundred. Roughly 9,800 of them are children and 151,000 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1952 and half after.
An estimate, not a count. SSA births aged forward through SSA cohort life tables, which know nothing about who left the country or arrived in it — so for a name that mostly came to America rather than being born in it, this is a floor rather than a figure. Where you fall among living Americans.
Where the name comes from
Origin a coined name
A twentieth-century blend of Mary and Lynn.
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Marilyns
- Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962)American actress and model
- Marilyn Manson (born 1969)American musician
- Marilyn Waring (born 1952)New Zealand politician and academic
- Marilyn Chambers (1952–2009)American pornographic actress
- Marilyn Horne (born 1934)American mezzo-soprano opera singer
- Marilyn French (1929–2009)Novelist, critic
- Marilyn Maxwell (1921–1972)American actress and singer
- Marilyn Burns (1949–2014)American actress
People named Marilyn with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Marilyn is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Marilyn is most concentrated in Iowa (2.2×), Nebraska (2.0×), South Dakota (1.9×), North Dakota (1.8×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 1947
The most popular girls’ names the year Marilyn peaked:
Marilyn elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| France girls | Marilyn | 5,160 | 208th |
| New Zealand girls | Marilyn | 546 | 28th |
| England and Wales girls | Marilyn | 277 | 1,541st |
| Italy girls | Marilyn | 265 | — |
| Belgium girls | Marilyn | 139 | 614th |
| Ireland girls | Marilyn | 92 | 326th |
| Scotland girls | Marilyn | 74 | 256th |
| Switzerland girls | Marilyn | 63 | 984th |
| Northern Ireland girls | Marilyn | 3 | 426th |
Counts come from each country's own records and are not comparable with the US figures above, which cover different years and a different definition of a recorded name. Where a country writes the name several ways, the spellings are added together and the most common is shown. A row marked name registrations is counting something else: Portugal ranks each of a child's two given names separately, so a girl registered Maria Leonor is in both the Maria row and the Leonor row, and that figure is not a number of children.
Marilyn: births by region
| Region | Country | Spelling | Births | Share of the region | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| German girls | Switzerland | Marilyn | 36 | 0.003% | 676th |
| French girls | Switzerland | Marilyn | 19 | 0.004% | 359th |
| Italian girls | Switzerland | Marilyn | 7 | 0.011% | 116th |
| Romansh girls | Switzerland | Marilyn | 1 | 0.027% | 4th |
Parts of a country counted above, not extra births. The share is what makes the regions comparable: they differ in size by a factor of three hundred.
Marilyn: rank by region
In 2020, Marilyn was given 5 times or more in 1 region of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flanders | Marilyn | 839 | 5 |
In 2018, Marilyn was among the 10 most common names in 1 region of Italy.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Valle d'Aosta/Vallée d'Aoste | Marilyn | 10 | 1 |
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children, Italy after 10 names – and published nothing after. So a region missing here is one where the name fell outside what was published, not one where it went unused. Places are shared where names tie, and the further down a list a place is, the more names can share it.
Marilyn among the living
How many people each country's register counts under the name, rather than how many were given it in any one year. Each register was read on one date, and they are not the same date.
| Country | Spelling | First forename | Any forename |
|---|---|---|---|
| Finland girls | Marilyn | 20 | 78 |
A count of people on a register – Finland on 4 August 2026 – and not of births, so it cannot be compared with the figures above. Names with very few bearers are withheld, and a dash in the first-forename column means the register would not say rather than that nobody goes by it.
Where Marilyn lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 708 women called Marilyn were living in Spain on 1 January 2025, of every age, born in any year. Where they live is not spread evenly.
Women: the provinces where it is densest
| Province | Spelling | People | Per thousand | Place there |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Santa Cruz de Tenerife | Marilyn | 53 | 0.096 | 972 |
| Alicante/Alacant | Marilyn | 57 | 0.055 | 1,248 |
| Málaga | Marilyn | 45 | 0.049 | 1,187 |
| Balears, Illes | Marilyn | 31 | 0.049 | 1,299 |
| Madrid | Marilyn | 169 | 0.046 | 1,177 |
| Palmas, Las | Marilyn | 25 | 0.042 | 1,926 |
Listed in 24 of Spain's 52 provinces. In the other 28 it is either held by fewer than 5 people – the point below which the source withholds a name – or it fell past the 5,000 names the source will print for one province. Neither means nobody there is called it. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.
Related names
Marilyn against another name
Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.
Try it on yourself
Source: US Social Security Administration, national and state baby-name files, 1880–2025. Counts include only births registered with the SSA, and names with fewer than five births in a year are not published. The living estimate applies SSA cohort life tables to those births; it counts people born in the United States, so it misses anyone who arrived later and anyone who has left.