Marvin
Feminine
Marvin is given to boys far more often — 254,192 boys against 1,615 girls since 1880. See Marvin as a boy name
Marvin is a Welsh name that English could not spell, and the two things most Americans associate with it are both slightly wrong. One is a street in a board game that is misspelled, and has been since the nineteen thirties. The other is a singer whose surname was not quite his surname either, because he added a letter to it as a young man and kept it for the rest of his life.
How old is the name Marvin?
Marvin first appears in US birth records in 1902 — 123 years ago. The typical Marvin alive today was born around 1945, making them about 80 years old. About 900 people named Marvin are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Marvin most popular?
Marvin peaked in 1929, reaching #1107 nationally. See the whole 1929 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From An Old Welsh name of uncertain meaning to Marvin
The story of Marvin
The board game bought the rights to a set of Atlantic City street names, and whoever transcribed them got one wrong. The real place is a residential development in Margate, just outside the city limits, spelled with an e; the game has spelled it with an i since the nineteen thirties, and the manufacturer eventually issued a formal apology to the residents in the nineteen nineties, sixty years late. Millions of people have therefore learned a misspelling as the correct form of a name. The singer's story runs the other way: he was born with a three-letter surname and added a fourth letter to it in his teens, partly to close off an obvious joke and partly because his father, a minister, had made the plain form difficult to carry. Both are small stories about the same thing, which is how much a single letter can be asked to do.
Meaningnot established
Not established
The name descends from an Old Welsh name whose elements are disputed. The second half is generally connected to a word meaning eminent or fair; the first half has no agreed reading. It has nothing to do with the English word for a wonder, however strongly the resemblance suggests otherwise. That connection is a folk etymology, and it is the single most common thing said about this name in print.
How the name formed
- An Old Welsh name of uncertain meaning
- Written into English several ways at once
- Marvin settling as the American form
- Very widely used through the first half of the twentieth century
Related forms: Merfyn · Mervyn
Pronouncing Marvin
MAR-vin
Two syllables, stress on the first. The Welsh original has an f where this has a v, and Welsh says that f as a v, so the American spelling is closer to the sound of the original than the Welsh spelling looks.
Nicknames for Marvin
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
- 1902
- Most girls named
- 192440 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1107reached in 1929
- Change vs 1994
- −16.7%5 in 2019, from 6
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.
Marvin in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Merfyn in Welsh — related form
- Mervyn in English — related form
Marvins among us
people named Marvin 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
Marvin 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 completely familiar, entirely unambiguous and has never needed spelling out.
- Marv is warm in a way that few two-syllable men's names manage.
- It has a genuine Welsh history rather than the invented one usually printed for it.
- It is strongly tied to a generation and carries that association immediately.
- There is no meaning to give, and the obvious English word is not the answer.
- The spelling is on the register for girls as well, in very small numbers.
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Marvin
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Marvins are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 900 people named Marvin are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Marvin in 2025?
- Marvin is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Marvin with classmates?
- Marvin 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 Marvin? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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