Marques
Masculine · “marquis”
Marques is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 8,070 boys against 23 girls since 1880.
Marques is the Portuguese word for a marquis, and the title itself names a border — a march was frontier territory needing a military governor.
How old is the name Marques?
Marques first appears in US birth records in 1952 — 73 years ago. The typical Marques alive today was born around 1994, making them about 31 years old. About 7,800 people named Marques are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Marques most popular?
Marques peaked in 1984, reaching #447 nationally. Today it ranks #4396, 3,949 places below that high. See the whole 1984 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From marka to Marques
The story of Marques
The Frankish empire's border provinces were marches and their governors marquises, ranked above ordinary counts because frontier commands carried more military weight. The Welsh Marches and the Spanish March are the same word. Marques is a very common Portuguese surname and its use as an American given name is recent, appearing in the records from the 1980s alongside Marcus and Marquis.
Meaning
marquis, lord of a march
From Portuguese marquês, from a Germanic word marka, a boundary or frontier; a marquis governed a march, a border province, which is why the rank sits above a count. English march and margin are from the same root.
How the name formed
- marka
- marquês
- Marques
Related forms: Marquês · Marquis · Marqués
Pronouncing Marques
mar-KAY
Two syllables with the stress on the second. Some families say MAR-kwiss.
Nicknames for Marques
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
- 1952
- Most boys named
- 1983343 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #447reached in 1984
- Change vs 2024
- −28.1%23 in 2025, from 32
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.
Marques in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Marquês in Portuguese — same name
- Marquis in French — same name
- Marqués in Spanish — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: Florida, Texas, California.
Marquess among us
people named Marques are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 74,264 born in 2025 was named Marques
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Marques
- #4396
- Marques on the 2025 chart
- #863
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Marques went to 23 boys in 2025, but Marquez is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 65, which makes it the 863rd most-given boys’ name of the year — 3,533 places above the chart.
- Marquez42
- Marques23
About 1 boy in 26,278 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 74,264 for Marques 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 Theron test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Marques's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Theron climbed just as high around 1910, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Theron's path sketches the road Marques is walking now.
Marques 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
Marques beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Marques in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A settled meaning with a genuinely interesting piece of feudal history.
- Marc is a sound-alike short form and a complete name in its own right.
- Seven letters and two syllables, manageable to write.
- The pronunciation is genuinely unsettled between the French and English readings.
- Marques, Marquis and Marquise are all in use and get confused.
- It names a rank of nobility, which some will remark on.
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Marques
Masculine · #4396 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Marquess are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 7,800 people named Marques are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Marques?
- Marques is one of 2 recorded spellings. Marquez is the more common one — 42 births in 2025 against 23 for Marques.
- How popular is the name Marques in 2025?
- Marques ranks #4396 among US boy names in 2025, with 23 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Marques?
- About 1 in every 74,264 US boys born in 2025 was named Marques — 23 in all.
- Will my child share the name Marques with classmates?
- Marques will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Marques
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Odell#4396 · Corwin#4396 · Tennyson#4396 · Manu#4396 · Omid#4396 · Zackariah#4396 · Azeem#4396 · Burton#4396
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Marques? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Marques and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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