Marilyn
- Pronunciation
- [Ma-ri-lyn]
- Gender
- Female
- Meaning
- Blend Of Marie Or Mary And Lyn.
- Origin
- English
About the Name Marilyn
Marilyn is a modern American invented name, formed as a creative blend of Mary and Lyn/Lynn. The name appears in American naming records starting in the early 20th century and is essentially a 20th-century American invention.
The name's overwhelming modern American cultural anchor is American actress Marilyn Monroe (Norma Jeane Mortenson, 1926–1962, the iconic American actress and Hollywood Golden Age sex symbol whose career through Some Like It Hot 1959, The Seven Year Itch 1955, and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes 1953 made her one of the foundational figures of mid-20th-century American film). Marilyn Monroe's iconic 1962 death and her relationships with Joe DiMaggio and Arthur Miller cemented her status as one of the most-iconic American cultural figures of the 20th century.
Marilyn held a US top-25 girls' rank from 1937 through 1955 — about two decades of consistent American popularity, peaking around 1950 (the early years of Marilyn Monroe's career) at #7 in the United States. The name has receded slightly since but remains in steady use today, currently sitting in the US top 300 girls' rank. The name's appeal is its compound Mary-Lyn structure combined with three flowing syllables — the in-built Mary-classical biblical pedigree, the strong Marilyn Monroe American cultural anchor (one of the most-iconic American 20th-century names), and tonal warmth distinctive to vintage-revival names. Three flowing syllables, soft consonants, and the name reads as both classical-American and distinctly contemporary. Common nicknames Mari (the dominant warm short form, casual and warm), Lyn, Lynn, and the rare Mara each carry distinct registers; the alternate spellings Marilyn, Marilynn, Maralyn, and Marylin have their own SSA tracking. International variants are minimal since the name's first-name use is essentially American.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Marilyn
US Popularity History (1925–2025)
Annual US births named Marilyn by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 1947 with 11,881 girls named Marilyn (girl rank #29 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #761 for girls (356 US births). That's 732 places below its 1947 peak.
Source: US Social Security Administration. Limitations: US birth-certificate data only; names appearing fewer than 5 times in a given year are suppressed for privacy; spelling variants are counted separately. For names that ranked outside the US top 100 before year 2000, only the years they reached the top 100 are shown — the chart may have gaps for less-popular historical names.
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Where in the US Is Marilyn Most Popular?
Average girl-name rank within each state across 2016–2025 SSA records. A lower number means the name appears closer to the top of that state's girls-name rankings — a per-capita measure that isn't biased toward large states. For Marilyn the strongest states are Iowa, California, Arizona.
Strongest girls-name states
Weakest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | New Jersey | #874 | 42 |
| 2 | Florida | #853 | 157 |
| 3 | Michigan | #841 | 90 |
| 4 | Tennessee | #770 | 74 |
| 5 | North Carolina | #770 | 113 |
| 6 | Illinois | #758 | 116 |
| 7 | Louisiana | #756 | 52 |
| 8 | Missouri | #729 | 41 |
| 9 | Minnesota | #725 | 52 |
| 10 | Georgia | #705 | 105 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Marilyn in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Variant Forms
| Name | Meaning | Gender | Origin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Maralyn | Blend Of Marie Or Mary And Lyn. | Female | English |
| Marilee | Bitterness | Female | Greek |
| Marilynn | Blend Of Marie Or Mary And Lyn. | Male | English |
| Marlyn | Blend Of Marie Or Mary And Lyn. | Female | English |
| Marylin | Blend Of Marie Or Mary And Lyn. | Female | English |
| Marylyn | Blend Of Marie Or Mary And Lyn. | Female | English |
| Marylynn | Blend Of Marie Or Mary And Lyn. | Female | English |
Famous People Named Marilyn
2 notable figures from history and culture who share the name Marilyn.
- Marilyn Manson — Rock Singer (1969)
- Marilyn Monroe — Movie Actress (1926)
Looking for names like Marilyn?
A dedicated page with 60+ related names — spelling variants, rhymes, alliterations, same-origin matches, and shared meaning concepts — lives at its own URL so each kind of similarity gets a deeper treatment than fits here.
Compare Marilyn to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Marilyn against today's most popular girls-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).
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