Marvin
- Pronunciation
- [Mar-vin]
- Gender
- Male
- Meaning
- Lives By The Sea
- Origin
- Celtic
About the Name Marvin
Marvin descends from the Old Welsh Merfyn, possibly composed of mer (sea) and vyn (eminent) — yielding "sea-eminent" or "famous mariner." An alternate Welsh etymology connects Marvin to the Welsh Merlin (from myrddin meaning "sea-fortress" — the iconic Arthurian wizard). The name has been used continuously in English-speaking countries since the late medieval period.
Notable bearers include the iconic American singer Marvin Gaye (Marvin Pentz Gay Jr., 1939–1984, the iconic African-American singer-songwriter whose career through Motown Records — including What's Going On 1971 and Sexual Healing 1982 — made him one of the foundational figures of late-20th-century American R&B); American filmmaker Marvin Hamlisch (1944–2012, the iconic American Pulitzer Prize-winning composer); American boxer Marvelous Marvin Hagler (1954–2021, the iconic American boxing world middleweight champion); and the iconic Disney character Marvin the Martian (introduced 1948).
Marvin held a US top-50 boys' rank from 1925 through 1955 — about three decades of consistent American popularity. The name has receded since but remains in steady use, currently sitting in the US top 300 boys' rank. The name's appeal is its layered Old Welsh-American pedigree combined with two firm syllables — the in-built sea-eminent etymological register, the strong Marvin Gaye American music cultural anchor, and tonal versatility from rural-American to upwardly-mobile-American. The name reads as both classical-Welsh and contemporary American. Common nicknames Marv (the dominant warm short form, casual and warm), Marvy, and the rare Vin each carry distinct registers; the alternate spellings Marvin and Marvyn have their own SSA tracking. International forms include Mervin (Irish alternate), Mervyn (Welsh alternate), and the original Old Welsh Merfyn.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Marvin
US Popularity History (1905–2025)
Annual US births named Marvin by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 1928 with 4,452 boys named Marvin (boy rank #46 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #699 for boys (385 US births). That's 653 places below its 1928 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 Marvin 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 Marvin the strongest states are Maryland, Nebraska, Virginia.
Strongest boys-name states
Weakest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Colorado | #774 | 18 |
| 2 | Arizona | #765 | 54 |
| 3 | Illinois | #748 | 90 |
| 4 | Tennessee | #725 | 78 |
| 5 | Washington | #722 | 73 |
| 6 | Texas | #657 | 385 |
| 7 | Alabama | #651 | 46 |
| 8 | Minnesota | #642 | 74 |
| 9 | North Carolina | #638 | 130 |
| 10 | Massachusetts | #626 | 45 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Marvin in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Variant Forms
| Name | Meaning | Gender | Origin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mervyn | Famous Friend | Male | English |
Famous People Named Marvin
1 notable figure from history and culture who share the name Marvin.
- Marvin Gaye — Soul Singer (1939)
Looking for names like Marvin?
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 Marvin to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Marvin against today's most popular boys-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).