Name Awesome

Mare

Boys' name

Diminutive of Maria

Mare has been given to 339 babies in the U.S. since 1947. 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 1969, with 21 recorded.

Babies named Mare, 1989

1 in 640,000

Mare over time, 1880–2025

BoysGirls
010203018801900192019401960198020002020

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Mare: meaning, origin, and history

Diminutive of Maria

Hebrew and Danish

What Mare means

Mare is a diminutive of Maria.

Documented naming usage and pronunciation

Mare is used in Estonian, Slovene, Macedonian and Croatian.

Meaning behind the documented name family

The name developed through Mare → Maria → Maria → מרים. The family’s proposed meaning is “to be bitter”, recorded in Hebrew with the source elements m-r-r.

Origin, language, and formation

Mare is used in English, Estonian and Greenlandic. Its origins include Hebrew and Danish.

Related names and everyday forms

Related names include Maria, Mary and Marianne.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 331 boys were recorded with the name Mare between 1947 and 1989. Its highest annual count was 21 in 1969; its best national rank was #1,842 in 1969.

In the United States, 8 girls were recorded with the name Mare between 2023 and 2023. Its highest annual count was 8 in 2023; its best national rank was #11,811 in 2023.

Sources & methodologyReferences, data & attribution

Meaning, origin, and language notes draw on the references below.

American popularity figures use published Social Security Administration records for this exact spelling. Counts below five for a name, sex, and year are omitted.

Wiktionary material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

How common is Mare?

Mare had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 1989, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 1989
1 in 640,000
6 of 3,842,268 births
Among boys only
1 in 333,000
<0.01% of boys
Rank, 1989
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
443,877 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Mare sits on the popularity scale

Rarest published (5 a year)#1 — Liam (20,818)

Chance at least one other child shares the name

If the other children were drawn at random from the 1989 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.

Class of 20Under 1%
Class of 30Under 1%
Grade of 100Under 1%
School of 500Under 1%

Put another way: gather 443,877 children born in 1989 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Mare. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Mares were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Mare was born before 1969 — so the typical Mare is around 56 today.

Median birth year
1969
About 56 years old
Biggest decade
1960s
29.0% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
63.1%
A modern name
Recorded since 1950
321
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1960s — 29.0% of all recorded uses (96).

Is Mare 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 1969 (21)
Years since peak
56
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
40.2% average annual change
Best rank ever
#1,842
1969

Spellings of Mare

Mare is not the most common spelling — Mark is, with 22.6% against Mare's <0.01%.

Grouped by closeness of spelling (up to two letter changes), same sex, with a floor on all-time use. It catches Sophia/Sofia and Aiden/Ayden, and misses spellings that sound alike but look different, like Sean and Shawn.

Where Mare is used

Across 1910–2025, Mare was most concentrated in New York — about 1 in — boys, against 1 in 2,664,768 across all states with data.

00 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1New York1 in —

Shading is the share of that state's recorded boys 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. Mare has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Mare around the world

Where Mare 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.

  • South Australia
    1988–1988
    #476
    in 1988

Popularity data from Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0.

Mare by the numbers

The raw record for each sex the name is used for.

As a boy's name

Rank in 2025
Unranked
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
—
Best rank ever
#1,842
1969
Peak year
1969
21 that year
First recorded
1947
Last recorded
1989
All-time count
331
Count in 2025
Under 5

As a girl's name

Rank in 2025
Unranked
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
—
Best rank ever
#11,811
2023
Peak year
2023
8 that year
First recorded
2023
Last recorded
2023
All-time count
8
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Mare

Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.

MarxMarzMarikMarshMarMartiMarsMarckMariMarcioMarleeMarinMarvMarselMaronMarcyMarlMarisMarsdenMartMardyMarstonMarzellMarsean

Sibling names for Mare

Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.

Explore around Mare

Top names of 1969, Mare's peak yearThe 1960s in fullOther names that peaked in 1969Boys' names starting with MEstonian Girl Names