Marc
A masculine name derived from the Roman name Marcus.
Name Census estimates that about 123,850 living Americans carry the first name Marc. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Marc today is around 50 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Marc births was 1970 (5,036 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Marc. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
For a British comparison, Name Census UK has a UK baby-name profile for Marc with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Although Marc is used almost entirely for boys, the SSA data does show 533 girls registered with the name since 1880.
- • Compared to the 1970s, recent registration numbers for Marc have dropped to less than 5% of what they once were.
People living today
124K
~ 1 in 2,767 Americans
Peak year
1970
5,036 babies that year
Average age
50
years old
2024 SSA rank
#1,191
Tracked since 1901
Census
Marc in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 125,340 people with the first name Marc, which placed it at #450 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#450
National first-name rank
People counted
125K
125,340 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
41.5
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
74.6% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Marc
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Marc is White at 74.6%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (10.6%) and Black (9.0%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Marc described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Marc at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White74.6% · 93,553
- Hispanic or Latino10.6% · 13,225
- Black or African American9.0% · 11,255
- Asian and Pacific Islander2.9% · 3,600
- Two or more races2.6% · 3,295
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.3% · 412
Gender
Gender distribution for Marc
Out of the 140,973 babies given the name Marc since 1880, 99.6% were registered as male. The name sits firmly on the male side of the spectrum, with only a handful of female registrations across the entire dataset.
Marc as a male name
- Ranked #1,191 in 2024
- 172 male births in 2024
- Peak: 1970 (5,011 births)
Marc as a female name
- Ranked #9,621 in 2000
- 10 female births in 2000
- Peak: 1970 (25 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Marc appears almost entirely male. Of the 125,342 people counted with this name, 99.9% were male and only a very small share were female.
Popularity
Marc: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Marc from the 1900s through to the 2020s, spanning 13 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1970s, with 31,999 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1970s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Marc by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Marc during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Marcs live
The SSA's state-level files cover 51 states and territories. New York, California, Pennsylvania recorded the most babies named Marc, while Wyoming, Alaska, South Dakota recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 2,698 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Marc
The name Marc has its origins in the ancient Roman culture, deriving from the name Marcus, which was a common praenomen (personal name) among Roman patrician families. The name is believed to have emerged from the Latin word "mas," meaning "male" or "masculine." Its earliest recorded use dates back to the Roman Republic period, around the 5th century BC.
Marcus was a prominent name in Roman history, borne by several notable figures. One of the most famous was Marcus Tullius Cicero, the renowned orator, philosopher, and statesman who lived from 106 BC to 43 BC. Another significant bearer of the name was Marcus Aurelius, the Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher who reigned from 161 to 180 AD and authored the philosophical work "Meditations."
The name Marc gained popularity throughout Europe during the Middle Ages, likely due to the influence of the Christian martyr Saint Mark the Evangelist, whose name in Latin was Marcus. Saint Mark, one of the four Gospel writers, is believed to have lived in the 1st century AD and is traditionally regarded as the founder of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria.
In the 12th century, Marc became a popular name among the Normans, who had a strong presence in England and parts of France. One notable bearer of the name from this era was Marc Antony de Gernes, a Norman knight who accompanied William the Conqueror during the Norman Conquest of England in 1066.
During the Renaissance period, the name Marc was particularly popular in Italy, where it was often associated with artistic and intellectual circles. One of the most renowned figures of this era bearing the name was Marco Polo, the Venetian merchant and explorer who traveled to China and introduced Europeans to the lands of the East in the late 13th century.
Other notable historical figures named Marc include Marc Chagall, the Russian-French artist and pioneer of modernism who lived from 1887 to 1985, and Marc Bloch, the French historian and co-founder of the Annales School of historical analysis, who lived from 1886 to 1944.
Notable bearers
Famous people named Marc
People
Marc + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Marc as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with M
Other first names starting with M with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Marc: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Marc?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 123,850 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Marc going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 2,767 US residents.
Is Marc a common name?
We classify Marc as "Common". It ranks above 99.6% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 140,973 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Marc most popular?
The single biggest year for Marc was 1970, when 5,036 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Marc is about 50 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Marc in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 125,340 people with the name Marc, or 41.50 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #450 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Marc in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Marc?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Marc appears almost entirely male. Of the 125,342 people counted with this name, 99.9% were male and only a very small share were female. The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Marc?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Marc is White at 74.6%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (10.6%) and Black (9.0%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Marc most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Marc in the 2020 Census, accounting for 74.6% (93,553 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Marc in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Marc a male name?
Yes, 99.6% of people registered as Marc in the SSA data are male. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Is Marc still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Marc in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Marc can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.
How many Americans are named Marc?
See how many people share the name Marc on HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site built around that single question.