Ma
Girls' nameMeaning not yet documented
Ma has been given to 631 babies in the U.S. since 1924. It was used fewer than 5 times in 2025, so it doesn't appear in the latest year's list — today it's a genuinely uncommon pick. Its peak year was 1990, with 31 recorded.
Babies named Ma, 2018
1 in 502,000
Ma over time, 1880–2025
Based on births in the U.S. Babies given the name each year. Hover the chart — or focus it and use the arrow keys — for any year. Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.
How common is Ma?
Ma had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 2018, the last year it was published.
- Among all babies, 2018
- 1 in 502,000
- 7 of 3,516,853 births
- Among girls only
- 1 in 243,000
- <0.01% of girls
- Rank, 2018
- Unranked
- Fewer than 5 uses
- Coin-flip room size
- 348,244 kids
- Even odds of a second one
Where Ma sits on the popularity scale
Chance at least one other child shares the name
If the other children were drawn at random from the 2018 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.
Put another way: gather 348,244 children born in 2018 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Ma. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.
When Mas were born
Half of everyone ever recorded as Ma was born before 1991 — so the typical Ma is around 34 today.
- Biggest decade
- 1990s
- 34.4% of all use
- Born in the last 25 years
- 40.3%
- Spread across generations
- Recorded since 1950
- 585
- People you could plausibly meet
1990s — 34.4% of all recorded uses (217).
Is Ma rising or falling?
Rank movement and count movement can disagree — the number of distinct names in use keeps growing, so a name holding a steady count still slides down the list. Both are shown.
- Rank vs 1 year ago
- —
- Not ranked then
- Rank vs 5 years ago
- New entry
- Not ranked then
- Rank vs 10 years ago
- —
- Not ranked then
- Births vs 10 years ago
- —
- Not published both years
- Share of its own peak
- 0%
- Peak was 1990 (31)
- Years since peak
- 35
- Years
- Year-to-year steadiness
- Shifting
- 20.6% average annual change
Where Ma is used
Across 1910–2025, Ma was most concentrated in Texas — about 1 in 100,000 girls, against 1 in 236,887 across all states with data. It was least common in Illinois (1 in —).
Most concentrated
- 1Texas1 in 100,000
- 2California1 in —
- 3Illinois1 in —
Shading is the share of that state's recorded girls given this name, not the raw count — otherwise the map would just show which states are biggest. Unshaded states have no published records for this period. U.S. birth records suppress state-year counts below 5; state counts therefore don't add up to the national total. Every state links to its full rankings. Ma has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.
Ma around the world
Where Ma ranks in official birth records elsewhere in the world. Rankings only — the number of births isn’t comparable between places, so it isn’t shown.
- England & Wales2009–2009#5,556in 2009
- France1981–2024#5,210in 2024
- Norway1880–2005#578in 2005
- Canada1993–2020#3,144in 2020
- South Australia1986–2009#818in 2009
Popularity data from Office for National Statistics, Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques, Statistics Norway, Statistics Canada and Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). ONS data under Open Government Licence v3.0. INSEE data under Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0. SSB, CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0. StatCan data under Statistics Canada Open Licence.
Ma by the numbers
The raw record for each sex the name is used for.
Names similar to Ma
Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.
Sibling names for Ma
Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.