Marquez
Masculine · “son of Marcos”
Marquez is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 5,636 boys against 5 girls since 1880.
Márquez is a Spanish patronymic: the son of Marcos. The -ez ending is one of the most productive things in Spanish naming, and its own origin is a genuinely open question that historians of the language still argue about.
How old is the name Marquez?
Marquez first appears in US birth records in 1969 — 56 years ago. The typical Marquez alive today was born around 2000, making them about 25 years old. About 5,500 people named Marquez are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Marquez most popular?
Marquez peaked in 1998, reaching #664 nationally. Today it ranks #2941, 2,277 places below that high. See the whole 1998 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Marcus to Marquez
The story of Marquez
Spanish surnames fixed in the medieval period and a great many of them are frozen patronymics: a man was Rodrigo's son and the name stayed with the family after Rodrigo was forgotten. Márquez belongs to that stock and is common across Spain and Latin America. Its use as a given name is a twentieth-century American development, part of the same movement that has put Spanish surnames at the front of the name — Marquez, Reyes, Santiago, Cruz — and it has been particularly at home in African-American and Latino families.
Meaning
son of Marcos
Spanish -ez marks a patronymic, so Márquez is 'of Marcos' as Rodríguez is of Rodrigo and Fernández of Fernando. Marcos is Latin Marcus, generally read as belonging to Mars, the god of war. The patronymic function is documented and certain; where the -ez ending itself came from — Basque, Visigothic or Latin — is still argued.
How the name formed
- Marcus
- Marcos
- Márquez
Related forms: Márquez · Marques · Marco
Pronouncing Marquez
mar-KESS
Two syllables with the stress on the second in Spanish, where the accent on the a would normally mark the first — Márquez is stressed on the first syllable in Spanish, MAR-kess. American English usually says mar-KEZ with a z, and both are widely heard.
Nicknames for Marquez
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
- 1969
- Most boys named
- 1998258 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #664reached in 1998
- Change vs 2024
- +16.7%42 in 2025, from 36
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.
Marquez in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Márquez in Spanish — same name
- Marques in Portuguese — spelling variant
- Marco in Italian — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: Georgia, Florida, Tennessee.
Marquezs among us
people named Marquez are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 40,668 born in 2025 was named Marquez
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Marquez
- #2941
- Marquez on the 2025 chart
- #863
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Marquez went to 42 boys in 2025, but Marques 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 — 2,078 places above the chart.
- Marquez42
- Marques23
About 1 boy in 26,278 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 40,668 for Marquez 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 Hoke test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Marquez's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Hoke climbed just as high around 1907, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Hoke's path sketches the road Marquez is walking now.
Marquez 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 Marquez is headed
Marquez is easing off slowly — about 24% fewer babies a year by 2030 if the trend continues.
Medium 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.
Marquez beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Marquez in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A documented Spanish patronymic with a clear and traceable structure.
- Marq and Quez are both natural short forms already in use.
- Two syllables that read correctly in Spanish and English alike.
- The stress falls on the first syllable in Spanish and the second in American English.
- The accent on Márquez is usually dropped in American records, which changes the reading.
- It is unmistakably a surname in Spanish-speaking countries and will be read as one.
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What they receive
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Marquez
Masculine · #2941 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Marquezs are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 5,500 people named Marquez are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Marquez?
- Marquez is the most-used spelling in US records — 42 of the 65 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Marques.
- How popular is the name Marquez in 2025?
- Marquez ranks #2941 among US boy names in 2025, with 42 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Marquez?
- About 1 in every 40,668 US boys born in 2025 was named Marquez — 42 in all.
- Will my child share the name Marquez with classmates?
- Marquez will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Marquez
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Prescott#2941 · Kwame#2941 · Michelangelo#2941 · Jahan#2941 · Kairi#2941 · Yonah#2941 · Nihal#2941 · Reyes#2941
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Marquez? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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