Mallory
Feminine · “unlucky”
Mallory is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 59,044 girls against 1,100 boys since 1880. See Mallory as a boy name
Mallory was a man's surname for eight hundred years and then, in the space of one television season in the middle 1980s, it became a girl's first name in America. The show was Family Ties and the character was Mallory Keaton, the elder daughter. Before her the name was on gravestones and library spines; after her it was on birth certificates, and it has never gone back.
How old is the name Mallory?
Mallory first appears in US birth records in 1938 — 87 years ago. The typical Mallory alive today was born around 1999, making them about 26 years old. About 58,000 people named Mallory are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Mallory most popular?
Mallory peaked in 1986, reaching #83 nationally. Today it ranks #372, 289 places below that high. See the whole 1986 chart.
Mallory appears on these lists:
Where it comes from
From an Old French nickname for the unlucky to Mallory
The story of Mallory
The most quoted sentence in mountaineering was an Englishman named Mallory getting rid of a reporter. Asked in New York why he wanted to climb Everest, George Mallory said it was because it is there — a brush-off that has been read ever since as a philosophy. In June 1924 he and Andrew Irvine set out from the highest camp and were seen through a break in the cloud, high on the ridge, going strongly for the top. Neither came back, and whether they reached the summit thirty years before Hillary and Tenzing is still argued. Mallory's body was found on the north face seventy-five years later, face down, still wearing hobnailed boots.
Meaning
unlucky, or ill-omened
The surname comes from Old French, from a word for the unfortunate or the ill-fated, and it was almost certainly a nickname before it was a family name — the sort of thing a village calls a man behind his back. Surnames are not chosen the way first names are, which is why unflattering ones survive: nobody signed up for it, they just inherited it. That history is worth knowing and not worth worrying about. No modern Mallory is being called unlucky by anyone; the word stopped carrying its sense the moment it became a family name.
How the name formed
- an Old French nickname for the unlucky
- an English surname from the Norman period on
- Sir Thomas Malory's Arthur printed in 1485
- a mountaineer lost on Everest in 1924
- a sitcom daughter turns it into a girls' first name
Related forms: Maloret · Mallorie · Malory
Pronouncing Mallory
MAL-uh-ree
Three syllables with the weight at the front, and the middle one almost disappears. Some speakers say MAL-ree, which is how the surname was pronounced in England for centuries.
Nicknames for Mallory
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
- 1938
- Most girls named
- 19873,138 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #83reached in 1986
- Change vs 2023
- +15.2%825 in 2025, from 716
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.
Mallory in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Maloret in French — related form
- Mallorie in English — spelling variant
- Malory in English — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, North Carolina, California.
Mallorys among us
people named Mallory are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 1,948 born in 2025 was named Mallory
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Jeanne test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Mallory's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Jeanne climbed just as high around 1946, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Jeanne's path sketches the road Mallory is walking now.
Mallory is on its second act. Revived names age gently: the generation that wore them first is far enough away that the name feels classic rather than dated.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Mallory is headed
Mallory looks set to keep climbing gently, with roughly 16% more babies a year by 2030 if the current curve holds.
Medium confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Mallory beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Mallory 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 surname-name that has been fully naturalized as a first name, so it sounds neither borrowed nor invented.
- It works on a child and on an adult, which is more than can be said for most names that arrived from television.
- Everyone can spell it after hearing it once, and the double l is the only thing to check.
- The name is dated to its decade for anyone over forty, who will hear the sitcom before they hear anything else.
- The literal sense of the surname is unflattering, and a child who looks it up will find that out.
- Mallory and Mallorie both chart, so she will occasionally have to correct the ending.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Mallory
Feminine · #372 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Mallorys are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 58,000 people named Mallory are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Mallory in 2025?
- Mallory ranks #372 among US girl names in 2025, with 825 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Mallory?
- About 1 in every 1,948 US girls born in 2025 was named Mallory — 825 in all.
- Will my child share the name Mallory with classmates?
- Mallory will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Mallory
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Esmeralda#373 · Jordyn#371 · Malani#374 · Adhara#370 · Raya#369 · Anya#375 · Alaya#368 · Astrid#376
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Mallory? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Mallory and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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