Marvin
Masculine
Marvin is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 254,192 boys against 1,615 girls since 1880. See Marvin as a girl 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 was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Marvin alive today was born around 1945, making them about 80 years old. About 124,000 people named Marvin are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Marvin most popular?
Marvin peaked in 1931, reaching #44 nationally. Today it ranks #699, 655 places below that high. See the whole 1931 chart.
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
- 1880
- Most boys named
- 19304,404 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #44reached in 1931
- Change vs 2022
- −15.8%385 in 2025, from 457
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
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Florida.
Marvins among us
people named Marvin are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 4,437 born in 2025 was named Marvin
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Floyd test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Marvin's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Floyd climbed just as high around 1905, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Floyd's path sketches the road Marvin is walking now.
Marvin 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 Marvin is headed
Marvin 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.
Marvin beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Marvin in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
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.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Marvin
Masculine · #699 in the U.S.
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 124,000 people named Marvin are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Marvin in 2025?
- Marvin ranks #699 among US boy names in 2025, with 385 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Marvin?
- About 1 in every 4,437 US boys born in 2025 was named Marvin — 385 in all.
- Will my child share the name Marvin with classmates?
- Marvin will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Marvin
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Jayson#700 · Evander#698 · Bridger#701 · Kareem#701 · Mac#695 · Bryer#703 · Sevyn#695 · Robin#703
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Marvin? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Marvin and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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