Maribeth
Feminine · “Mary plus Elizabeth”
You cannot fuse Mary and Beth without changing a letter. The y has to become an i or the join does not read, and that single forced change is how you can tell Maribeth from Mary Beth: one is a name and the other is two names standing next to each other.
How old is the name Maribeth?
Maribeth first appears in US birth records in 1916 — 109 years ago. The typical Maribeth alive today was born around 1962, making them about 63 years old. About 5,200 people named Maribeth are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Maribeth most popular?
Maribeth peaked in 1957, reaching #667 nationally. Today it ranks #6325, 5,658 places below that high. See the whole 1957 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Miryam to Maribeth
The story of Maribeth
The American double name is a spoken form before it is a written one: in Catholic and in Southern Protestant families a girl called Mary Beth is called that by everyone, all the time, and Mary alone is never used. A name used as a single unit for long enough starts to be written as one, and English orthography then forces a decision, because Marybeth keeps a y in a position where English wants an i. Maribeth is the version that accepts the change and becomes a genuinely new word; Marybeth is the version that refuses and stays visibly a compound. Maribeth's best year on record is 1957, in the middle of the period when American double names were at their strongest.
Meaningscholars disagree
Mary plus Elizabeth, the second usually read as my God is an oath
Mary descends from Hebrew Miryam, whose sense is unresolved between bitter, beloved and an Egyptian element. Beth is a short form of Elizabeth, Hebrew Elisheva, usually read as my God is an oath or God is abundance. The compound has no meaning of its own; it inherits two, and neither of them is settled.
How the name formed
- Miryam
- Mary
- Mary Beth
- Maribeth
Related forms: Marybeth · Maria Isabel · Maria Elisabetta
Pronouncing Maribeth
MAIR-ee-beth
Three syllables with the main stress at the front and a secondary stress on beth. Said as one word, not as two names with a pause between them.
Nicknames for Maribeth
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
- 1916
- Most girls named
- 1958194 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #667reached in 1957
- Change vs 2023
- +38.5%18 in 2025, 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.
Maribeth in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Marybeth in English — spelling variant
- Maria Isabel in Spanish — related form
- Maria Elisabetta in Italian — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: Ohio, Pennsylvania.
Maribeths among us
people named Maribeth are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 89,293 born in 2025 was named Maribeth
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Maribeth
- #6325
- Maribeth on the 2025 chart
- #922
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Maribeth went to 18 girls in 2025, but Marybeth is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 38, which makes it the 922nd most-given girls’ name of the year — 5,403 places above the chart.
- Marybeth20
- Maribeth18
About 1 girl in 42,297 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 89,293 for Maribeth 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 Jacquelin test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Maribeth's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Jacquelin climbed just as high around 1931, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Jacquelin's path sketches the road Maribeth is walking now.
Maribeth 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
Maribeth beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Maribeth in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Two of the most enduring names in Europe combined into one that is unmistakably American.
- Beth and Mari both work alone, in different registers.
- The single-word spelling survives forms and databases that split first names into fields.
- Mary Beth, Marybeth and Mary-Beth are all in use and will be written instead.
- The fused spelling reads as mid-century American, which is precisely its period.
- People who know a Mary Beth will keep putting the space back in.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Maribeth
Feminine · #6325 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Maribeths are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 5,200 people named Maribeth are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Maribeth?
- Maribeth is one of 2 recorded spellings. Marybeth is the more common one — 20 births in 2025 against 18 for Maribeth.
- How popular is the name Maribeth in 2025?
- Maribeth ranks #6325 among US girl names in 2025, with 18 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Maribeth?
- About 1 in every 89,293 US girls born in 2025 was named Maribeth — 18 in all.
- Will my child share the name Maribeth with classmates?
- Maribeth will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Maribeth
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Kaye#6325 · Doria#6325 · Karolyn#6325 · Rosaleen#6325 · Roni#6325 · Darian#6325 · Svetlana#6325 · Fanny#6325
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Maribeth? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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