Martha
Martha is a girl's name that peaked in 1947, when it was the 32nd most popular in the United States. In 2025 it ranked 712th. About 231,000 Marthas are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 70.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Martha boys named Martha
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 553,732
- Estimated living today
- 231,000
- Median age today
- 70
- Peak year
- 1947
- Best rank
- 32nd
- Rank in 2025
- 712th
- First recorded
- 1880
- Girls / boys
- 551,741 / 1,991
How old the living Marthas are
born that year still alive today
Of the 553,732 babies given the name since 1880, about 231,000 are alive — 42 in every hundred. Roughly 7,100 of them are children and 148,000 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1955 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 Aramaic
From Latin Martha, from Ancient Greek Μάρθα, from Aramaic מָרְתָא (“mistress”), feminine of מרא.
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Marthas
- Martha Washington (1731–1802)First Lady of the United States from 1789 to 1797
- Martha Argerich (born 1941)Argentine pianist
- Martha Graham (1894–1991)American dancer and choreographer
- Martha Stewart (born 1941)American businesswoman, writer, TV personality
- Martha Nussbaum (born 1947)American philosopher
- Princess Märtha of Sweden (1901–1954)Crown Princess of Norway
- Martha Gellhorn (1908–1998)journalist from the United States
- Martha Jefferson Randolph (1772–1836)First Lady of the United States from 1801 to 1809
People named Martha with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Martha is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Martha is most concentrated in Alabama (2.3×), Mississippi (2.3×), Kentucky (2.1×), Tennessee (2.1×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 1947
The most popular girls’ names the year Martha peaked:
Martha elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| England and Wales girls | Martha | 15,418 | 67th |
| France girls | Martha | 2,875 | 233rd |
| Norway girls | Martha | 1,663 | 132nd |
| Ireland girls | Martha | 1,653 | 121st |
| Scotland girls | Martha | 882 | 117th |
| Belgium girls | Martha | 839 | 178th |
| Northern Ireland girls | Martha | 403 | 76th |
| Italy girls | Martha | 322 | — |
| Switzerland girls | Martha | 207 | 393rd |
| Poland girls | Martha | 66 birth registrations | 297th |
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.
Martha: births by region
| Region | Country | Spelling | Births | Share of the region | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| German girls | Switzerland | Martha | 173 | 0.014% | 333rd |
| French girls | Switzerland | Martha | 27 | 0.006% | 484th |
| Italian girls | Switzerland | Martha | 6 | 0.009% | 181st |
| Romansh girls | Switzerland | Martha | 1 | 0.027% | 11th |
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.
By canton, Martha is most concentrated in Zurich, where 0.02% of children were given it – 70 of them.
Martha: rank by region
In 2025, Martha was given 5 times or more in 1 region of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flanders | Martha | 149 | 38 |
In 2025, with the country taken in 11 areas rather than 3, Martha appears in the lists for Province of East Flanders (98th), Province of West Flanders (103rd) and Province of Antwerp (182nd).
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children – 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.
Martha by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin girls | 2017–2023 | 285 | 72nd |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Martha 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| the Netherlands girls | Martha | 11,248 | 24,007 |
| the Netherlands boys | Martha | — | 573 |
| Finland girls | Martha +1 spelling | 260 | 465 |
A count of people on a register – the Netherlands on 1 January 2018, 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 Martha lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 2,268 women called Martha 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Soria | Martha | 7 | 0.158 | 535 |
| Barcelona | Martha | 422 | 0.139 | 574 |
| Madrid | Martha | 511 | 0.138 | 541 |
| Santa Cruz de Tenerife | Martha | 70 | 0.126 | 770 |
| Balears, Illes | Martha | 76 | 0.121 | 651 |
| Palmas, Las | Martha | 69 | 0.117 | 876 |
Listed in 45 of Spain's 52 provinces. In the other 7 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
Martha 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.