Marah
Feminine · “bitter”
Naomi renames herself. Returning to Bethlehem widowed and childless she tells the women not to call her Naomi, which means pleasant, but Mara, because the Almighty has dealt bitterly with her. It is one of very few name changes in scripture made by the person themselves.
How old is the name Marah?
Marah first appears in US birth records in 1964 — 61 years ago. The typical Marah alive today was born around 2001, making them about 24 years old. About 2,300 people named Marah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Marah most popular?
Marah peaked in 1991, reaching #1443 nationally. Today it ranks #6546, 5,103 places below that high. See the whole 1991 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From marah to Marah
The story of Marah
Marah occurs twice in the Hebrew Bible and both times it is about the taste of loss. In Exodus the people reach a spring three days into the desert and the water is bitter, and the place is named for it. In Ruth, Naomi uses the word about herself, which is remarkable: the book gives a woman the authority to rename herself in response to what has happened to her, and then quietly declines to use the new name afterwards. English-speaking use of Marah is modern and largely evangelical, and its best year in United States records is 1991. The name is also read by some families simply as a variant of Mara or Mary.
Meaning
bitter
Hebrew marah, bitter, from the root m-r-r. It is the name of the place in Exodus where the Israelites find water they cannot drink, and it is the name Naomi gives herself in the book of Ruth. The same root is one of the proposed sources for Miriam and Mary, though that derivation is contested and probably wrong.
How the name formed
- marah
- Mara
- Marah
Related forms: Mara · Mara · Mara
Pronouncing Marah
MAH-rah
Two syllables with the stress on the first. The final h is silent in English and marks a Hebrew consonant; some families say muh-RAH with the stress at the end, following the Hebrew.
Nicknames for Marah
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
- 1964
- Most girls named
- 2004117 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1443reached in 1991
- Change vs 2024
- −56.4%17 in 2025, from 39
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.
Marah in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Mara in Hebrew — transliteration
- Mara in English — spelling variant
- Mara in Spanish — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: Florida, Michigan.
Marahs among us
people named Marah are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 94,545 born in 2025 was named Marah
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Marah
- #6546
- Marah on the 2025 chart
- #507
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Marah went to 17 girls in 2025, but Mara and Marra are the same name said out loud. Together the 3 spellings went to 522, which makes it the 507th most-given girls’ name of the year — 6,039 places above the chart.
- Mara499
- Marah17
- Marra6
About 1 girl in 3,079 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 94,545 for Marah 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 Bethanne test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Marah's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Bethanne climbed just as high around 1964, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Bethanne's path sketches the road Marah is walking now.
Marah 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
Marah beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Marah in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A settled Hebrew meaning attached to one of the most striking passages in the Bible.
- Five letters, two syllables, and no spelling difficulty.
- Close to Mary and Mara without being either.
- The meaning is bitter, which is a great deal to give a child.
- Mara without the h is the more common spelling.
- The biblical context is grief, which families should know before choosing it.
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What they receive
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Marah
Feminine · #6546 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Marahs are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 2,300 people named Marah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Marah?
- Marah is one of 3 recorded spellings. Mara is the more common one — 499 births in 2025 against 17 for Marah.
- How popular is the name Marah in 2025?
- Marah ranks #6546 among US girl names in 2025, with 17 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Marah?
- About 1 in every 94,545 US girls born in 2025 was named Marah — 17 in all.
- Will my child share the name Marah with classmates?
- Marah will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Marah
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Roseann#6546 · Solveig#6546 · Elona#6546 · Rosette#6546 · Bradie#6546 · Rida#6546 · Gwendalyn#6546 · Lorene#6546
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Marah? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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