Name Awesome

Marge

Girls' name

Diminutive of Margaret

Marge has been given to 3,784 babies in the U.S. since 1889. 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 1941, with 114 recorded.

Babies named Marge, 1976

1 in 607,000

Marge over time, 1880–2025

Girls
05010015018801900192019401960198020002020

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Marge: meaning, origin, and history

Diminutive of Margaret

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Marge means

Marge is a diminutive of Margaret.

Documented naming usage and pronunciation

Marge is used in English and Estonian.

Another recorded pronunciation is /ˈmɑɹd͡ʒ/ and /ˈmɑːd͡ʒ/ for Marge.

Meaning behind the documented name family

The name developed through Marge → Margaret. The family’s meaning is “pearl”, recorded in English with the source elements margarítēs.

Related names and everyday forms

Related names include Margaret and Marjorie.

Pronunciation and spelling

In English, Marge is pronounced /mɑɹd͡ʒ/.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 3,784 girls were recorded with the name Marge between 1889 and 1976. Its highest annual count was 114 in 1941; its best national rank was #665 in 1941.

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 Marge?

Marge had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 1976, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 1976
1 in 607,000
5 of 3,034,007 births
Among girls only
1 in 293,000
<0.01% of girls
Rank, 1976
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
420,604 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Marge sits on the popularity scale

Rarest published (5 a year)#1 — Olivia (13,544)

Chance at least one other child shares the name

If the other children were drawn at random from the 1976 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 420,604 children born in 1976 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Marge. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Marges were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Marge was born before 1935 — so the typical Marge is around 90 today.

Median birth year
1935
About 90 years old
Biggest decade
1940s
21.7% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
17.0%
Spread across generations
Recorded since 1950
711
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1940s — 21.7% of all recorded uses (820).

Is Marge 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 1941 (114)
Years since peak
84
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
31.1% average annual change
Best rank ever
#665
1941

Spellings of Marge

Marge is not the most common spelling — Mary is, with 63.3% against Marge's 0.06%.

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 Marge is used

Across 1910–2025, Marge was most concentrated in Illinois — about 1 in 14,286 girls, against 1 in 47,439 across all states with data. It was least common in Kansas (1 in —).

07 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1Illinois1 in 14,286
  2. 2Michigan1 in 33,333
  3. 3Ohio1 in 33,333
  4. 4Wisconsin1 in 33,333
  5. 5Minnesota1 in 50,000
  6. 6California1 in 100,000
  7. 7Iowa1 in 100,000
  8. 8Indiana1 in 100,000

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. Marge has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Marge around the world

Where Marge 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.

  • France
    1973–1980
    #3,255
    in 1980

Popularity data from Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques. INSEE data under Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0.

Notable people named Marge

People whose public names include Marge, backed by Wikidata given-name records and ordered by linked Wikimedia pages. The name may be a middle name.

People data from Wikidata (CC0). Fame is measured, not judged — the order reflects how widely each person is documented, not the U.S. birth records popularity this page is otherwise about.

Marge in other languages

Cross-language forms and variants of Marge. Linked forms have their own page here.

Marg

Variant forms from Wikidata (CC0). Most are used mainly outside the United States; U.S. birth records statistics cover US usage only.

Marge by the numbers

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

As a girl's name

Rank in 2025
Unranked
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
—
Best rank ever
#665
1941
Peak year
1941
114 that year
First recorded
1889
Last recorded
1976
All-time count
3,784
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Marge

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

MartyMarniMartiMarynMarliMarisMarwaMarahMarinMaryaMarloMarryMarlyMarlieMarelyMaritaMarvelMariyaMarlenMarnieMarenMariluMaryahMarci

Names with a curve like Marge

Not spelling — timing. These names rose, peaked and faded in the same years as Marge, so they read as being from the same moment even when they look nothing alike.

WilliaBernardineLoyceNoreneMargarettLouveniaNetaCletaReathaLavadaRuthaPalma

Sibling names for Marge

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 Marge

Top names of 1941, Marge's peak yearThe 1940s in fullOther names that peaked in 1941Girls' names starting with MEstonian Girl NamesEstonian Names