Macen
Masculine · “stone worker”
Macen is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 964 boys against 5 girls since 1880.
Macen is a respelling of Mason, and the trade behind it organized itself in lodges that gave freemasonry its name and its vocabulary.
How old is the name Macen?
Macen first appears in US birth records in 1992 — 33 years ago. The typical Macen alive today was born around 2012, making them about 13 years old. About 1,000 people named Macen are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Macen most popular?
Macen peaked in 2010, reaching #2287 nationally. Today it ranks #4249, 1,962 places below that high. See the whole 2010 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
Origin, sound and short forms
Our story of Macen
Ours, offered as ours. Medieval masons were unusual among tradesmen because the work moved: a cathedral took generations and the skilled men traveled between sites, which meant they needed ways of recognizing one another and of proving competence in a place where nobody knew them. The lodge, the marks cut into stones, the graded ranks — all of that was practical before it was symbolic, and freemasonry inherited the apparatus.
Meaning
stone worker
From Old French masson, a mason, of Frankish origin; the English word and the surname are the same. The freemasons borrowed the trade's name and its lodge structure in the seventeenth century, which is the later of the two.
Pronouncing Macen
MAY-sun
Two syllables, first stressed. Macen and Mason are said identically.
Nicknames for Macen
Moderate
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1992
- Most boys named
- 201056 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #2287reached in 2010
- Change vs 2024
- −35.1%24 in 2025, from 37
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Macen in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Mason in English — spelling variant
- Maçon in French — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, Florida, California.
Macens among us
people named Macen are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 71,170 born in 2025 was named Macen
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Macen
- #4249
- Macen on the 2025 chart
- #808
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Macen went to 24 boys in 2025, but Mazen and Masen are the same name said out loud. Together the 3 spellings went to 120, which makes it the 808th most-given boys’ name of the year — 3,441 places above the chart.
About 1 boy in 14,234 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 71,170 for Macen itself.
Spellings are grouped by a fixed rule that folds interchangeable English spellings of one sound (ck/k, ph/f, x/ks, a non-initial y for i) and keeps vowels apart, so Sean and Shawn stay separate names. It errs towards splitting: a family here is never larger than the truth. SSA national data, 2025. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Fredderick test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Macen's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Fredderick climbed just as high around 1953, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Fredderick's path sketches the road Macen is walking now.
Macen sits in the calm middle of the cycle — neither chasing a wave nor sliding off one. Middle-of-the-cycle names age slowly and predictably.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Macen beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Macen in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A settled occupational meaning with a genuinely impressive trade behind it.
- Mace and Mac are both plain short forms and Mac is a complete name.
- Read correctly on sight by every English speaker.
- Mason is the standard spelling and will be written for him constantly.
- The sound is extremely widely used, so a classroom may hold more than one.
- Macen, Maeson, Maisen and Mason are all in use and only Mason is common.
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Macen
Masculine · #4249 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Macens are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,000 people named Macen are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Macen?
- Macen is one of 3 recorded spellings. Mazen is the more common one — 52 births in 2025 against 24 for Macen.
- How popular is the name Macen in 2025?
- Macen ranks #4249 among US boy names in 2025, with 24 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Macen?
- About 1 in every 71,170 US boys born in 2025 was named Macen — 24 in all.
- Will my child share the name Macen with classmates?
- Macen will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Macen
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Guadalupe#4249 · Denny#4249 · Hughes#4249 · Erling#4249 · Rodrick#4249 · Elric#4249 · Ron#4249 · Wright#4249
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Macen? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Macen and another name?
See them side by side — full stats, history and a gentle verdict.
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Which one would you pick?
Your gut first, the numbers after — the split shows once you pick.
US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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