Mairin
Feminine · “Hebrew Miriam”
Irish avoided the name Mary for centuries. It was considered too sacred to give to a child, so the form Muire was reserved for the Virgin alone and everyone else used Maire, Mairin or Mairead. The taboo has faded and the vocabulary it produced has not: Irish still has two words where every other language has one.
How old is the name Mairin?
Mairin first appears in US birth records in 1977 — 48 years ago. The typical Mairin alive today was born around 2007, making them about 18 years old. About 700 people named Mairin are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Mairin most popular?
Mairin peaked in 2007, reaching #3721 nationally. Today it ranks #8860, 5,139 places below that high. See the whole 2007 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Miriam to Mairin
The story of Mairin
The reservation of a name out of reverence is not unique to Ireland but the Irish case is unusually clean, because the language kept the two forms permanently separate. Muire is the Virgin; Maire is a woman. Spanish did something similar in a different way, avoiding the bare Maria in favor of Marian titles, Dolores, Mercedes, Pilar, Consuelo, Rosario, each naming an aspect of the Virgin rather than the Virgin herself. Medieval England avoided Mary for several centuries after the Conquest for the same reason and then abandoned the scruple. What survives in Irish is a grammatical distinction with a theological origin, and it means an Irish speaker cannot accidentally name a child after the mother of God: the language will not let them.
Meaningscholars disagree
Hebrew Miriam, meaning unknown
Mairin is the Irish diminutive of Maire, which is the Irish form of Mary, from Hebrew Miriam, whose meaning has never been established. Irish keeps a separate form, Muire, used only of the Virgin Mary and never as a personal name. Mairin carries the -in diminutive suffix and is anglicized as Maureen. It peaks in the American data in 2007.
How the name formed
- Miriam
- Maire
- Mairin
Related forms: Mairin · Maureen · Maire
Pronouncing Mairin
maw-REEN
Two syllables, stress on the second, which is why the anglicization is Maureen. The accent on the Irish a is a length mark that American records strip. Some American families say MAIR-in with the stress at the front.
Nicknames for Mairin
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
- 1977
- Most girls named
- 200743 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #3721reached in 2007
- Change vs 2024
- −8.3%11 in 2025, from 12
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.
Mairin in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Mairin in Irish — same name
- Maureen in English — same name
- Maire in Irish — related form
Mairins among us
people named Mairin are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 146,115 born in 2025 was named Mairin
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Mairin
- #8860
- Mairin on the 2025 chart
- #941
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Mairin went to 11 girls in 2025, but Mayrin is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 19, which makes it the 941st most-given girls’ name of the year — 7,919 places above the chart.
- Mairin11
- Mayrin8
About 1 girl in 84,593 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 146,115 for Mairin 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 Arieal test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Mairin's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Arieal climbed just as high around 1991, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Arieal's path sketches the road Mairin is walking now.
Mairin 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
Mairin beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Mairin in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- It is a genuine Irish form with a documented diminutive structure.
- Maureen is available as a familiar anglicization.
- The name is short and elegant on the page.
- The stress falls differently in Irish and in American English.
- The Irish accent mark is lost in American records.
- The underlying name has no established meaning.
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What they receive
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Mairin
Feminine · #8860 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Mairins are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 700 people named Mairin are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Mairin?
- Mairin is the most-used spelling in US records — 11 of the 19 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Mayrin.
- How popular is the name Mairin in 2025?
- Mairin ranks #8860 among US girl names in 2025, with 11 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Mairin?
- About 1 in every 146,115 US girls born in 2025 was named Mairin — 11 in all.
- Will my child share the name Mairin with classmates?
- Mairin will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Mairin
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Lida#8860 · Lauretta#8860 · Dot#8860 · Bonita#8860 · Benita#8860 · Trixie#8860 · Adna#8860 · Sue#8860
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Mairin? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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