Martin
Feminine · “of Mars”
Martin is given to boys far more often — 315,561 boys against 1,476 girls since 1880. See Martin as a boy name
Martin is one of the oldest continuously used names in Europe, and the man behind it did not want the job. According to his biographer, when the people of Tours decided to make him their bishop he hid, and was given away by geese, which is why geese have been eaten on his feast day across Europe for something like fifteen hundred years.
How old is the name Martin?
Martin first appears in US birth records in 1887 — 138 years ago. The typical Martin alive today was born around 1964, making them about 61 years old. About 1,000 people named Martin are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Martin most popular?
Martin peaked in 1887, reaching #1147 nationally. See the whole 1887 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From A Latin name formed from the war god to Martin
The story of Martin
The goose story appears early and stuck. The feast falls on the eleventh of November, which in the northern European farming year is the point where the grazing ends, the animals that cannot be overwintered are killed, the salting begins and the new wine is ready. That coincidence turned the day into the great autumn feast across most of the continent, complete with roast goose, and made the saint's day one of the most widely observed in Europe. It also marked a legal and agricultural boundary: rents fell due, hiring fairs were held, and in England the term still called after him survives in the legal calendar. The name spread on the back of all that rather than on the strength of the biography, which is how ordinary names usually spread.
Meaning
of Mars
The Latin name derives from the war god, in the ordinary Roman way of forming names from divine ones, and the reading is settled. The irony is not lost on anyone: the saint who made the name universal was a Roman soldier who refused to fight, on the grounds that he was a soldier of Christ, and was imprisoned as a coward before being let go.
How the name formed
- A Latin name formed from the war god
- A fourth-century soldier who refused to fight
- One of the most widely observed feast days in Europe
- Martin in continuous use in every European language
Related forms: Martin · Martin · Martin · Marton
Pronouncing Martin
MAR-tin
Two syllables, stress on the first, in English. French drops the final n into a nasal vowel and puts the stress at the back, and Spanish puts it at the back with an accent to say so, so the same spelling is said three ways across Europe.
Nicknames for Martin
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
- 1887
- Most girls named
- 198637 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1147reached in 1887
- Change vs 2006
- 0.0%5 in 2014, 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.
Martin in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Martin in French — same name
- Martin in Spanish — same name
- Martin in German — same name
- Marton in Hungarian — same name
Martins among us
people named Martin 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
Martin 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
- It is used unchanged in more European languages than almost any other name.
- It is completely familiar, universally spellable and needs no explaining.
- It has an unbroken record of about seventeen hundred years.
- The stress falls differently in English, French and Spanish, which a bilingual family will notice.
- It is also an extremely common surname, which occasionally causes confusion on forms.
- The spelling is on the register for girls as well, in very small numbers.
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What they receive
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Martin
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Martins are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,000 people named Martin are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Martin in 2025?
- Martin is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Martin with classmates?
- Martin 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 Martin? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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