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Marja

Girls' name

Possibly to be bitter, through Maria

Marja has been given to 437 babies in the U.S. since 1921. 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 1978, with 45 recorded.

Babies named Marja, 1999

1 in 615,000

Marja over time, 1880–2025

Girls
020406018801900192019401960198020002020

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Marja: meaning, origin, and history

Possibly to be bitter, through Maria

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Marja means

Marja belongs to the name family reached through Marja → Maria → Maria → מרים. Its meaning is “to be bitter”.

Origin, language, and formation

Marja is used in Dutch, Faroese, Finnish and Swedish.

Related names and everyday forms

Related names include Maria and מרים.

Pronunciation and spelling

In Dutch, Marja is pronounced /ˈmɑr.jaː/.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 437 girls were recorded with the name Marja between 1921 and 1999. Its highest annual count was 45 in 1978; its best national rank was #2,109 in 1978.

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 Marja?

Marja had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 1999, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 1999
1 in 615,000
6 of 3,692,373 births
Among girls only
1 in 296,000
<0.01% of girls
Rank, 1999
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
426,561 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Marja 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 1999 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 426,561 children born in 1999 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Marja. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Marjas were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Marja was born before 1977 — so the typical Marja is around 48 today.

Median birth year
1977
About 48 years old
Biggest decade
1980s
25.9% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
57.0%
A modern name
Recorded since 1950
404
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1980s — 25.9% of all recorded uses (113).

Is Marja 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 1978 (45)
Years since peak
47
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
32.2% average annual change
Best rank ever
#2,109
1978

Spellings of Marja

Marja is not the most common spelling — Mary is, with 48.8% against Marja'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 Marja is used

Across 1910–2025, Marja was most concentrated in California — about 1 in — girls, against 1 in 1,286,077 across all states with data. It was least common in Texas (1 in —).

00 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1California1 in —
  2. 2Texas1 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. Marja has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Marja around the world

Where Marja 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
    1925–1935
    #999
    in 1935
  • South Australia
    1951–1951
    #423
    in 1951

Popularity data from Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques and Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). INSEE data under Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0. CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0.

Marja 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
#2,109
1978
Peak year
1978
45 that year
First recorded
1921
Last recorded
1999
All-time count
437
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Marja

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

MaralMarraMareaMaritMaramMarwahMaryumMarjanMarleiMarlyMardaMariemMarkiMarilyMarryMargaMarcoMarleahMariluzMarayaMarienMarsMarakiMarai

Sibling names for Marja

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 Marja

Top names of 1978, Marja's peak yearThe 1970s in fullOther names that peaked in 1978Girls' names starting with MUncommon Finnish Girl Names