Marquette
Feminine · “Little Marc”
Marquette is given to both — 652 girls and 1,277 boys since 1880. See Marquette as a boy nameSee other names given to both
One Jesuit's surname is on a university, a county, a city, an iron range and a river, all in the American Midwest, and the man himself spent barely two years there. Marquette is a French family name that became American geography, and from the geography it became a given name.
How old is the name Marquette?
Marquette first appears in US birth records in 1937 — 88 years ago. The typical Marquette alive today was born around 1980, making them about 45 years old. About 600 people named Marquette are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Marquette most popular?
Marquette peaked in 1972, reaching #2523 nationally. See the whole 1972 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Marc to Marquette
The story of Marquette
Jacques Marquette went to New France as a missionary in his twenties, learned several Algonquian languages, and in his mid-thirties traveled with Louis Jolliet and five other men down the Wisconsin and into the Mississippi, following it far enough south to establish that it ran to the Gulf and not to the Pacific, then turning back before reaching Spanish territory. He died two years later on the Michigan shore, not yet forty. American mapmakers of the nineteenth century, looking for names for new counties and towns in country he had passed through, used his over and over, and a Catholic university in Milwaukee took it as well. The given name follows the map rather than the man: American families took it off signposts.
Meaningscholars disagree
Little Marc, or from Marquette
The surname is French and can be read two ways: as a diminutive built on Marc with the ending French uses for small things, or as a name taken from one of the places in northern France called Marquette. Both are ordinary ways for a French surname to be formed and the record does not decide. It is not a feminine of marquis, though the shape invites that reading.
How the name formed
- Marc
- Marquette
Related forms: Marquette
Pronouncing Marquette
mar-KET
Two syllables with the stress at the back. The qu says a plain k, as it does in every French word English has borrowed with it, and the final e is silent. Americans who know the university say it exactly this way.
Nicknames for Marquette
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
- 1937
- Most girls named
- 198434 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #2523reached in 1972
- Change vs 2000
- +40.0%7 in 2001, from 5
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.
Marquette in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Marquette in French — same name
Marquettes among us
people named Marquette 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
Marquette 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
- Short, sharp and unmistakable once heard, with a real historical figure behind it.
- It works for a child of either sex, as surnames used as first names generally do.
- The French shape gives it a formality that most American surname-names do not have.
- The record carries this spelling for girls as well as boys, so it signals nothing on a form.
- The ending looks feminine to anyone who has studied French, and that reading will come up.
- For many Americans the first association is a basketball team rather than a person.
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Frequently asked
- How many Marquettes are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 600 people named Marquette are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Marquette in 2025?
- Marquette is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Marquette with classmates?
- Marquette 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 Marquette? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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