Marlowe
- Pronunciation
- [Mar-lowe]
- Gender
- Female
- Meaning
- Variant Of Marlene Woman From Magdala.
- Origin
- English
About the Name Marlowe
Marlowe traces back to an English surname meaning "driftwood" or "land by the lake," and it has also been linked to Marlene, a name ultimately connected to Magdala. As a given name it carries a literary, faintly vintage air, and its soft, two-syllable sound has helped it cross comfortably into use for girls, fitting neatly among the polished surname-names that have lately become so fashionable for daughters.
The recorded variant Marloe trims the final letter for a sleeker, more streamlined look, but the fuller Marlowe keeps the refined, surname-style elegance that has fueled its recent rise. It belongs to a wave of gender-fluid surnames embraced for their cool, sophisticated sound and their suggestion of creativity and understated style, qualities that have made the name especially popular among design-conscious parents.
As a girls' name, Marlowe is a recent arrival: it first entered the US Social Security top-1000 in 2017 and reached its peak in 2024 at rank #624, its highest standing to date, with roughly 2,000 girls given the name in just a few years. That sharp upward trajectory marks Marlowe as one of the fashionable surname-names of the late 2010s and early 2020s. With its literary echo and cool, gender-fluid polish, the name offers parents a sophisticated, artistic choice that feels distinctly of the moment.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Marlowe
US Popularity History (2017–2025)
Annual US births named Marlowe by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2025 with 575 girls named Marlowe (girl rank #523 that year).
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 Marlowe 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 Marlowe the strongest states are Iowa, Connecticut, Arkansas.
Strongest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Iowa | #432 | 33 |
| 2 | Connecticut | #478 | 33 |
| 3 | Arkansas | #501 | 20 |
| 4 | Colorado | #519 | 88 |
| 5 | Utah | #526 | 24 |
| 6 | Oregon | #542 | 48 |
| 7 | Kansas | #565 | 18 |
| 8 | Massachusetts | #610 | 85 |
| 9 | Wisconsin | #639 | 72 |
| 10 | Oklahoma | #640 | 20 |
Weakest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | New York | #837 | 80 |
| 2 | Illinois | #820 | 75 |
| 3 | Virginia | #819 | 28 |
| 4 | Alabama | #808 | 31 |
| 5 | Pennsylvania | #799 | 102 |
| 6 | Arizona | #787 | 34 |
| 7 | California | #771 | 395 |
| 8 | Kentucky | #763 | 33 |
| 9 | Michigan | #748 | 87 |
| 10 | Indiana | #744 | 55 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Marlowe in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Looking for names like Marlowe?
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 Marlowe to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Marlowe 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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