Mallory
Masculine · “unlucky”
Mallory is given to girls far more often — 59,044 girls against 1,100 boys since 1880. See Mallory as a girl 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 1914 — 111 years ago. The typical Mallory alive today was born around 1962, making them about 63 years old. About 800 people named Mallory are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Mallory most popular?
Mallory peaked in 1957, reaching #1436 nationally. See the whole 1957 chart.
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
- 1914
- Most boys named
- 197132 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1436reached in 1957
- Change vs 2004
- −53.8%6 in 2023, from 13
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
Mallorys among us
people named Mallory are estimated to be alive in the US today
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Mallory sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
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.
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Mallory
Masculine
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 800 people named Mallory are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Mallory in 2025?
- Mallory is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 boy names.
- Will my child share the name Mallory with classmates?
- Mallory will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More M names
The most-given names starting with M, all years combined.
Michael#21 · Matthew#32 · Mark#244 · Mason#39 · Martin#335 · Marvin#699 · Melvin#958 · Marcus#258
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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