Marlowe
Masculine
Marlowe is given to both — 1,662 boys and 4,805 girls since 1880. See Marlowe as a girl nameSee other names given to both
Marlowe is an English place name about drainage: the ground left behind when a lake dries out. It has been carried by a playwright and a fictional detective, and it is now given to boys and girls alike.
How old is the name Marlowe?
Marlowe first appears in US birth records in 1912 — 113 years ago. The typical Marlowe alive today was born around 1967, making them about 58 years old. About 1,100 people named Marlowe are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Marlowe most popular?
Marlowe peaked in 1952, reaching #1323 nationally. Today it ranks #3240, 1,917 places below that high. See the whole 1952 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Merelafan to Marlowe
The story of Marlowe
Marlow on the Thames is recorded before the Conquest, and families took its name in the usual way. The surname reached American records early. Its move into given names came in two waves: as a boys' name in the mid-twentieth century, on the strength of a literary detective and an Elizabethan dramatist, and again more recently for girls, in the same movement that took Harlow and Willow. Both uses are current.
Meaningscholars disagree
land remaining after a lake drained
The Buckinghamshire town's name is generally read from Old English mere, a lake, and lafe, remnants or leavings — the land left when the water goes. A simpler reading takes the second element as leah, a clearing, giving lake clearing instead; both are attested for places of this shape.
How the name formed
- Merelafan
- Marlow
- Marlowe
Related forms: Marlow
Pronouncing Marlowe
MAR-loh
Two syllables, first stressed. The final e is silent and changes nothing.
Nicknames for Marlowe
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
- 1912
- Most boys named
- 202339 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1323reached in 1952
- Change vs 2023
- −7.7%36 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.
Marlowe in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Marlow in English — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, New York, Texas.
Marlowes among us
people named Marlowe are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 47,447 born in 2025 was named Marlowe
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 Hiawatha test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Marlowe's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Hiawatha climbed just as high around 1934, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Hiawatha's path sketches the road Marlowe is walking now.
Marlowe 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
Where Marlowe is headed
Marlowe looks set to keep climbing gently, with roughly 44% more babies a year by 2030 if the current curve holds. Its history is short or jumpy, though, so read this as a sketch rather than a promise.
Low 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.
Marlowe beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Marlowe in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A documented English place name with an unusually specific landscape behind it.
- The sound is familiar to English speakers from literature and needs no explaining.
- It works for a boy or a girl, which is useful before a birth.
- It is increasingly read as a girls' name in the United States, so assumptions will run that way.
- Marlow and Marlowe are both used and the e will be added and dropped for him.
- The two literary associations are strong and pull in quite different directions.
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What they receive
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Marlowe
Masculine · #3240 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Marlowes are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,100 people named Marlowe are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Marlowe in 2025?
- Marlowe ranks #3240 among US boy names in 2025, with 36 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Marlowe?
- About 1 in every 47,447 US boys born in 2025 was named Marlowe — 36 in all.
- Will my child share the name Marlowe with classmates?
- Marlowe will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Marlowe
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Eugenio#3240 · Pace#3240 · Stoney#3240 · Dany#3240 · Rasheed#3240 · Abdirahman#3240 · Mykah#3240 · Lowell#3240
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Marlowe? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Marlowe and another name?
See them side by side — full stats, history and a gentle verdict.
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Which one would you pick?
Your gut first, the numbers after — the split shows once you pick.
US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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