Marshall
- Pronunciation
- [Mar-shall]
- Gender
- Male
- Meaning
- Steward Caretaker Of Horses.
- Origin
- English
About the Name Marshall
Marshall descends from the Old French mareschal, originally referring to a medieval official responsible for the care and management of horses (essentially a chief stable-master). The role evolved over centuries to refer to higher military and judicial offices — including the Marshal of France (a senior military rank) and the US Marshal (the federal law enforcement officer).
Notable bearers include American Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall (using Marshall as a surname, 1908–1993, the iconic African-American civil rights lawyer and first African-American Supreme Court Justice 1967–1991); American rapper Eminem (Marshall Bruce Mathers III, born 1972, the iconic American hip-hop artist whose career through The Marshall Mathers LP 2000 and The Eminem Show 2002 made him one of the foundational late-20th and early-21st-century American music figures); and the American constitutional history figure John Marshall (using Marshall as a surname, 1755–1835, fourth Chief Justice of the United States).
Marshall's American climb has been steady: the name held a US top-300 boys' rank from 1916 through 1985 and remains in steady use today. The name's appeal sits in three contemporary American naming preferences: the surname-style sophistication, the in-built medieval-equestrian heritage, and the strong Eminem (Marshall Mathers) modern cultural anchor. Two firm syllables, soft consonants, and tonal versatility from rural-American to upwardly-mobile-American. The name reads as both classical-medieval and contemporary American. Common nicknames Marsh (the dominant short form, casual and warm), Mars (back-end shortening), and the rare Shel each carry distinct registers; international forms include Maréchal (French original), Mariscal (Spanish), and the original Old French mareschal.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Marshall
US Popularity History (2000–2025)
Annual US births named Marshall by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2015 with 1,102 boys named Marshall (boy rank #319 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #340 for boys (977 US births). That's 21 places below its 2015 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 Marshall Most Popular?
Average boy-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 boys-name rankings — a per-capita measure that isn't biased toward large states. For Marshall the strongest states are Maine, North Dakota, Montana.
Strongest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Maine | #196 | 35 |
| 2 | North Dakota | #210 | 27 |
| 3 | Montana | #210 | 52 |
| 4 | West Virginia | #234 | 84 |
| 5 | South Dakota | #236 | 30 |
| 6 | Iowa | #243 | 153 |
| 7 | Indiana | #246 | 310 |
| 8 | Wisconsin | #252 | 227 |
| 9 | Kentucky | #269 | 181 |
| 10 | Ohio | #273 | 415 |
Weakest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | New Jersey | #882 | 41 |
| 2 | California | #635 | 419 |
| 3 | New York | #612 | 227 |
| 4 | Florida | #483 | 330 |
| 5 | Arizona | #470 | 142 |
| 6 | Massachusetts | #454 | 83 |
| 7 | Texas | #436 | 692 |
| 8 | Washington | #412 | 174 |
| 9 | Nevada | #409 | 57 |
| 10 | Maryland | #406 | 130 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Marshall in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Variant Forms
| Name | Meaning | Gender | Origin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Marsh | Steward | Male | French |
Looking for names like Marshall?
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 Marshall to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Marshall against today's most popular boys-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).