Marshal
Masculine · “horse servant”
Marshal is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 5,485 boys against 74 girls since 1880.
Marshal is an English word that climbed a very long way: it began as a servant who looked after horses and ended as one of the highest military ranks in Europe. Both meanings are inside the name.
How old is the name Marshal?
Marshal was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Marshal alive today was born around 1981, making them about 44 years old. About 4,000 people named Marshal are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Marshal most popular?
Marshal peaked in 1881, reaching #595 nationally. Today it ranks #3379, 2,784 places below that high. See the whole 1881 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From mareschal to Marshal
The story of Marshal
In a world where cavalry decided battles, the officer responsible for the horses was close to the center of power, and the word rose accordingly — a marshal of France outranked almost everyone by the seventeenth century. The word also became an English surname and, in America, the title of a law officer. Marshall with two l's is the usual surname spelling; Marshal with one is the ordinary word, and both are used as given names.
Meaning
horse servant; a high officer
From Germanic marah, a horse, and skalk, a servant, through Old French mareschal; the man in charge of a great lord's stables became the man in charge of his army, and the word rose with him.
How the name formed
- mareschal
- marshal
Related forms: Marshall · Maréchal · Marschall
Pronouncing Marshal
MAR-shul
Two syllables, first stressed. Marshal and Marshall are said identically.
Nicknames for Marshal
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
- 1880
- Most boys named
- 199292 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #595reached in 1881
- Change vs 2022
- −8.1%34 in 2025, from 37
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.
Marshal in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Marshall in English — spelling variant
- Maréchal in French — related form
- Marschall in German — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Ohio, Texas.
Marshals among us
people named Marshal are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 50,238 born in 2025 was named Marshal
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Marshal
- #3379
- Marshal on the 2025 chart
- #321
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Marshal went to 34 boys in 2025, but Marshall is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 1,011, which makes it the 321st most-given boys’ name of the year — 3,058 places above the chart.
- Marshall977
- Marshal34
About 1 boy in 1,689 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 50,238 for Marshal 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
Fashion outlook
Marshal 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 Marshal is headed
Marshal should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind. 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.
Marshal beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Marshal 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 good story of social climbing behind the word.
- Read correctly on sight by every English speaker.
- It has been in American given-name use since the nineteenth century.
- Marshall with two l's is the far more common spelling and will be written for him.
- It sounds identical to martial, meaning warlike, which will be confused constantly.
- The American law-officer sense is the first association for many.
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Marshal
Masculine · #3379 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Marshals are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 4,000 people named Marshal are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Marshal?
- Marshal is one of 2 recorded spellings. Marshall is the more common one — 977 births in 2025 against 34 for Marshal.
- How popular is the name Marshal in 2025?
- Marshal ranks #3379 among US boy names in 2025, with 34 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Marshal?
- About 1 in every 50,238 US boys born in 2025 was named Marshal — 34 in all.
- Will my child share the name Marshal with classmates?
- Marshal will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Marshal
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Art#3379 · Sampson#3379 · Kiernan#3379 · Benyamin#3379 · Quamir#3379 · Madhav#3379 · Tuff#3379 · Hubert#3379
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Marshal? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Marshal and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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