Martha: Meaning of Baby Name Martha

About the Name Martha

Martha comes from the Aramaic martā, meaning "lady" or "mistress of the house" — a title of authority and domestic leadership that appears in the New Testament as the name of the industrious sister of Mary and Lazarus at Bethany. The name carries centuries of biblical usage across multiple Christian traditions, which gave it a solidity and moral seriousness that kept it in continuous favour long after many of its contemporaries faded.

Two women in particular have defined the name's American identity. Martha Washington, born 1731, was the first First Lady of the United States as the wife of President George Washington — although the title "First Lady" was not yet in use during her 1789–1797 tenure. Martha Stewart, born 1941, is an American businesswoman, TV personality, and lifestyle author whose four-decade career has built one of the most-iconic American lifestyle-and-entertainment empires of the late 20th and early 21st century.

Martha appears in the US Social Security top-1000 from 1880 and reached its peak of #14 in 1882, an early dominance that reflects its deep Victorian roots. It is one of the rare names to have maintained unbroken top-1000 presence from 1880 through 2024, where it ranked #667 — a century and a half of continuous American use. Recorded variants include Marfa, Marta, Marte, Martina, Marty, Mattie, and Matty.

Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.

Quick Facts About Martha

1,531

Hebrew baby names in our dictionary

836

Hebrew female names

379

6-letter M-names in our dictionary

777

M-female names total

1880–2025

years of US SSA records (112 total)

499,814

total US births named Martha (all years)

US Popularity History (1880–2025)

🔥 Rising fast: Martha climbed 54 places in the US girls ranking over the last 5 years (#767 in 2020 → #713 in 2025).

Annual US births named Martha by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 1947 with 10,652 girls named Martha (girl rank #32 that year).

Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #713 for girls (393 US births). That's 681 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.

Where in the US Is Martha 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 Martha the strongest states are Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Mississippi.

Strongest girls-name states

#	State	Avg rank	Births
1	Pennsylvania	#265	405
2	Kentucky	#447	94
3	Mississippi	#484	27
4	Indiana	#501	136
5	Iowa	#530	32
6	Ohio	#566	183
7	Kansas	#596	17
8	Wisconsin	#600	85
9	Utah	#620	20
10	Oklahoma	#660	20

Weakest girls-name states

#	State	Avg rank	Births
1	Florida	#1,043	60
2	Illinois	#924	52
3	Georgia	#881	91
4	Washington	#877	38
5	California	#864	311
6	New York	#824	178
7	Massachusetts	#807	25
8	Arizona	#800	42
9	Michigan	#768	65
10	North Carolina	#768	115

Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Martha in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.

Variant Forms

Name	Meaning	Gender	Origin
Marta	A Lady MARYA	Female	Slavic
Martina	Feminine Of Martin Warring.	Female	Spanish
Marty	Warrior Of Mars.	Male	English
Mattie	Strong In War	Female	French
Matty	Strong In War	Female	French

Famous People Named Martha

2 notable figures from history and culture who share the name Martha.

Martha Stewart — Entrepreneur (1941)
Martha Washington — Political Wife (1731)

Browse more famous Marthas and similar first names →

Looking for names like Martha?

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Compare Martha to Other Popular Names

Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Martha against today's most popular girls-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).

Martha vs Olivia 210,124 births since 2014

Martha vs Emma 202,477 births since 2014

Martha vs Sophia 169,709 births since 2014

Martha vs Isabella 158,431 births since 2014

Martha vs Ava 157,356 births since 2014

Martha vs Charlotte 151,872 births since 2014

Martha vs Mia 149,779 births since 2014

Martha vs Amelia 142,728 births since 2014

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