Marge
Feminine · “pearl”
Marge does something none of Margaret's other short forms do: it softens the g. Margaret, Maggie, Meg and Madge all keep a hard g or turn it into a j only at the end; Marge takes the middle of the name and lets the consonant go soft, which is why it sounds so unlike its parent.
How old is the name Marge?
Marge first appears in US birth records in 1889 — 136 years ago. The typical Marge alive today was born around 1936, making them about 89 years old. About 1,300 people named Marge are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Marge most popular?
Marge peaked in 1941, reaching #664 nationally. See the whole 1941 chart.
Where it comes from
From margarites to Marge
The story of Marge
The pearl behind the name turns up in an unexpected place. When a French chemist isolated a fatty acid in the eighteen-hundreds and thought its crystals looked like pearls, he named it margaric acid, from the same Greek word; the butter substitute later developed from it took the name margarine and carried the pearl into every kitchen in the world. So the name on the certificate and the tub in the fridge are cousins. Marge itself is much newer than either. It appears in American records at the end of the nineteenth century and rises through the first half of the twentieth, in the decades when families began entering the spoken form of a name rather than the christening one.
Meaning
pearl
Inherited from Margaret, whose Greek root has meant a pearl for as long as the word has been written down.
How the name formed
- margarites
- Margaret
- Marge
Pronouncing Marge
MARJ
One syllable, rhyming with large. The g is soft, which is the whole character of the name; a hard g gives Marg, a different short form entirely.
Nicknames for Marge
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
- 1889
- Most girls named
- 1941114 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #664reached in 1941
- Change vs 1970
- −37.5%5 in 1976, from 8
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.
Marges among us
people named Marge 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
Marge 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
- One syllable, five letters, and no possible mispronunciation.
- It stands alone without needing Margaret behind it, which most of Margaret's short forms cannot manage.
- The pearl behind it is one of the oldest documented meanings attached to any European name.
- One long-running cartoon has made the name instantly recognizable and instantly attached.
- It reads as a short form, and formal settings will look for the Margaret that may not exist.
- In British English marge is also the everyday word for margarine, which the joke above does not help.
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What they receive
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Marge
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Marges are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,300 people named Marge are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Marge in 2025?
- Marge is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Marge with classmates?
- Marge will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More M names
The most-given names starting with M, all years combined.
Mary#125 · Margaret#112 · Michelle#465 · Melissa#419 · Maria#87 · Martha#712 · Marie#617 · Mildred#1962
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Marge? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Marge and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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