Mary

1,768,343 people in America carry this name — ranked #7 of 923.

Carried mostly by the Greatest Generation.

Say it MEH ree

2 syllables · the capitals are the stressed part

Phonetic transcription

M EH1 R IY0 — ARPAbet, as published in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. The digit on a vowel marks its stress.

  • People counted 1,768,343 2020 Census
  • As a surname 2,471 ranked #12,052 the other way round

What Mary means and where it comes from

Hebrew in origin, reading literally as “bitter”.

Origins are a matter of scholarly argument rather than record, and a name can be traced more than one way. We state one reading and say where it came from.

Mary name popularity by year

4,145,486 babies were given this name since 1880. The busiest year was 1921, with 74,172 of them.

80 90 00 10 20s 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 00 10 20

Most people carrying it were born in the 1920s. It has been given less often of late.

Counted from Social Security card applications, so it covers births registered in the United States and leaves out names given to fewer than five babies in a year.

Middle names that fit Mary

Two syllables sit with almost anything — the join matters more than the length.

Better avoided

  • Mary Maria — same opening
  • Mary Michelle — same opening
  • Mary Melissa — same opening

Chosen by sound from the pronouncing dictionary, then ordered by how often the name is given. None of it is a rule — the ear decides.

What Mary is called for short

Short forms as recorded in a 19th-century glossary of Christian names, so the list is old rather than complete.

A name from before the war

The year most children were called Mary was 1921. Names of that age tend to come back once their owners are grandparents.

Is Mary a boy's or a girl's name?

0.2% men
1,765,503 women

As recorded on census returns, not as anyone thinks the name ought to be used.

The likeliest full names

The census counts first names and surnames separately and never together, so these are estimates: how often the two halves would meet if they paired at random. They do not — names cluster by community — so read them as an order of magnitude, not a headcount.

Where the name Mary is most common in the US

In Mississippi the name is given 2.1 times as often as it is across the country.

  • Mississippi ×2.1
  • Alabama ×1.8
  • South Carolina ×1.6
  • Kentucky ×1.6
  • the District of Columbia ×1.6

Measured against the state's own share of births since 1960, so a small state can lead a big one. Counted from Social Security card applications.

Who has this name today

  • White alone (non-Hispanic) — 81.1%
  • Black or African American alone (non-Hispanic) — 9.3%
  • Hispanic or Latino origin — 5.6%
  • Two or more races — 1.8%
  • Asian and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone — 1.5%
  • American Indian and Alaska Native alone — 0.6%

Categories are how people answered the census — a fact about the bearers, not a property of the name. Conclusions are ours, not the Census Bureau’s.

How Mary is spelled

Mary is how 49% of them spell it — 3,636,704 people answer to the sound.

Each spelling is its own census entry — the counts never overlap, so the shares are of the group, not of the country.

Names about as common

The nearest entries above and below by number of people.

Try it Adult Height

Open Adult Height on its own page

Where this page gets its numbers

  • Counts, ranks and shares: U.S. Census Bureau, 2020 Census tabulations of first and last names occurring 100 or more times. Percentages, bands and groupings are our own arithmetic — the conclusions are ours, not the Bureau’s.
  • Pronunciation, syllables and rhyme groups: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, Carnegie Mellon University. The plain-English respelling is ours.
  • Origins and the forms a name takes in other languages: Charlotte Yonge, History of Christian Names, 1884 — a public-domain work. Scholarship has moved on since, so read it as one reading of a name, not the last word.

Below a hundred people we publish no figure at all — the same threshold the Census Bureau applies to us. What each source covers
Other names of Hebrew origin