Marion
A feminine name of French origin meaning "little rebel" or "bitter".
Name Census estimates that about 60,518 living Americans carry the first name Marion. It appears on both sides of the gender split, with 72.3% of registrations being female. The average person named Marion today is around 66 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Marion births was 1924 (7,660 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Marion. 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 Marion with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • The typical person named Marion is about 66 years old today, placing it firmly among the names of earlier generations. Most living Marions were born before 1970.
- • Compared to the 1920s, recent registration numbers for Marion have dropped to less than 5% of what they once were.
People living today
61K
~ 1 in 5,664 Americans
Peak year
1924
7,660 babies that year
Average age
66
years old
2024 SSA rank
#1,867
Tracked since 1880
Census
Marion in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 79,606 people with the first name Marion, which placed it at #666 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
#666
National first-name rank
People counted
80K
79,606 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
26.4
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
75.2% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Marion
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Marion is White at 75.2%. The next largest groups are Black (17.9%) and Hispanic (2.7%). 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 Marion 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 Marion at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White75.2% · 59,867
- Black or African American17.9% · 14,212
- Hispanic or Latino2.7% · 2,154
- Two or more races2.2% · 1,785
- Asian and Pacific Islander1.4% · 1,095
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.6% · 493
Gender
Gender distribution for Marion
Marion is one of the more evenly split names in the SSA data. Of the 261,565 total registrations, 72,440 (27.7%) were male and 189,125 (72.3%) were female.
Marion as a male name
- Ranked #2,321 in 2024
- 61 male births in 2024
- Peak: 1921 (1,716 births)
Marion as a female name
- Ranked #1,867 in 2024
- 107 female births in 2024
- Peak: 1924 (6,047 births)
2020 Census snapshot
The 2020 Census sex table shows Marion on both sides of the split. Of the 79,603 people counted with this name, 23,464 were male (29.5%) and 56,139 were female (70.5%).
Popularity
Marion: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Marion from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 15 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1920s, with 71,213 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1920s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Marion 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 Marion during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
| Decade | Male | Female | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1880s | 1,624 | 2,109 | 3,733 |
| 1890s | 1,508 | 7,310 | 8,818 |
| 1900s | 1,967 | 11,713 | 13,680 |
| 1910s | 10,156 | 37,974 | 48,130 |
| 1920s | 16,035 | 55,178 | 71,213 |
| 1930s | 11,859 | 29,566 | 41,425 |
| 1940s | 9,668 | 18,490 | 28,158 |
| 1950s | 7,261 | 11,883 | 19,144 |
| 1960s | 4,343 | 6,212 | 10,555 |
| 1970s | 2,664 | 2,563 | 5,227 |
| 1980s | 1,652 | 1,761 | 3,413 |
| 1990s | 1,180 | 1,315 | 2,495 |
| 2000s | 1,353 | 1,141 | 2,494 |
| 2010s | 892 | 1,324 | 2,216 |
| 2020s | 278 | 586 | 864 |
Geography
Where Marions live
The SSA's state-level files cover 50 states and territories. New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois recorded the most babies named Marion, while Nevada, Wyoming, Delaware recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 4,547 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Marion
The name Marion has its roots in the ancient Roman name Marianus, which was derived from the name Marius. Marius was a Roman family name that likely originated from the Latin word "mas," meaning male or masculine. The name Marianus was a patronymic form, indicating "belonging to Marius."
In the early Christian era, the name Marion gained popularity as a variant of the name Maria, which was the Latin form of the name Mary, the mother of Jesus. Marion was sometimes used as a masculine name but more commonly as a feminine name. It was particularly popular in France and other parts of Western Europe during the Middle Ages.
One of the earliest recorded examples of the name Marion can be found in the 12th century, when a French noblewoman named Marion de Lorme (1613-1679) gained notoriety as a courtesan and mistress of several prominent figures, including Cardinal Richelieu.
Another notable figure bearing the name Marion was Marion Delorme (1613-1650), a French dramatist and poet who wrote several successful plays during the reign of Louis XIII.
In the United States, the name Marion gained prominence with the Revolutionary War hero Francis Marion (1732-1795), also known as the "Swamp Fox." He was a military officer who led a successful guerrilla campaign against the British forces in South Carolina.
Another famous American with the name Marion was Marion Mitchell Morrison, better known as John Wayne (1907-1979), the iconic Hollywood actor who starred in numerous Western films.
In the world of literature, Marion Zimmer Bradley (1930-1999) was an American author best known for her Arthurian fantasy novels, particularly "The Mists of Avalon."
While the name Marion has waned in popularity in recent decades, it has a rich history spanning centuries and cultures, with notable individuals bearing the name in various fields, including literature, politics, and the arts.
Notable bearers
Famous people named Marion
People
Marion + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Marion 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
Marion: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Marion?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 60,518 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Marion 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 5,664 US residents.
Is Marion a common name?
We classify Marion as "Uncommon". It ranks above 99.2% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 261,565 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Marion most popular?
The single biggest year for Marion was 1924, when 7,660 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Marion is about 66 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Marion in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 79,606 people with the name Marion, or 26.36 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #666 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 Marion 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 Marion?
The 2020 Census sex table shows Marion on both sides of the split. Of the 79,603 people counted with this name, 23,464 were male (29.5%) and 56,139 were female (70.5%). 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 Marion?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Marion is White at 75.2%. The next largest groups are Black (17.9%) and Hispanic (2.7%). 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 Marion most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Marion in the 2020 Census, accounting for 75.2% (59,867 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 Marion in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Marion a female name?
Yes, 72.3% of people registered as Marion in the SSA data are female. 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 Marion still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Marion 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 Marion 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 people have Marion as a first name?
For a quick modern estimate, our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers that in one glance, with the living-bearer count front and centre.