Martin
Masculine · “of Mars”
Martin is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 315,561 boys against 1,476 girls since 1880. See Martin as a girl 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 was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Martin alive today was born around 1960, making them about 65 years old. About 204,000 people named Martin are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Martin most popular?
Martin peaked in 1880, reaching #44 nationally. Today it ranks #335, 291 places below that high. See the whole 1880 chart.
Martin appears on these lists:
- Classics hiding in plain sight
- France's favorites still rare in America
- Victorian names ready for a second century
- Under the radar: quietly excellent picks
- Names with only one spelling
- Names that begin and end with the same letter
- all guides
Works in French families too:
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
- 1880
- Most boys named
- 19636,073 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #44reached in 1880
- Change vs 2022
- −8.9%1,009 in 2025, from 1,108
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
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Florida. INSEE rounds every published count to the nearest five for statistical confidentiality; the ranks are calculated from the exact figures. International figures from INSEE. Sources
Martins among us
people named Martin are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 1,693 born in 2025 was named Martin
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
Fashion outlook
Martin has held the top-100 across 9 different decades — it has never depended on fashion, and names like that read the same at any age.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Martin is headed
Martin should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
High 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.
Martin beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Martin in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
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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Martin
Masculine · #335 in the U.S.
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 204,000 people named Martin are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Martin in 2025?
- Martin ranks #335 among US boy names in 2025, with 1,009 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Martin?
- About 1 in every 1,693 US boys born in 2025 was named Martin — 1,009 in all.
- Will my child share the name Martin with classmates?
- Martin will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Martin
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Bryan#336 · Orion#334 · Gideon#337 · Finley#333 · Paxton#338 · Sutton#332 · Brian#339 · Cruz#331
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Martin? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Martin and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration; international figures from national statistics agencies. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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