Mara

girls:

23k births since 1892

#938 (84th percentile)

boys:

16 births since 1982

#4570 (0th percentile)

overall:

23k births since 1892

#1669 (78th percentile)

Popularity Trends

The name Mara is the #1,669 most popular name of all time in the U.S. on a gender-neutral basis, with a total of 23,032 recorded births since 1892. This represents the 78.4% percentile of name popularity (more popular than 78.4% of all names). For girls, it ranks #938 (83.6% percentile) for all time with 23,016 births since 1892. For boys, it ranks #4,570 (0.3% percentile) for all time with 16 births since 1982.

Mara first appeared in U.S. birth records in 1892 (1892 for girls and 1982 for boys). Birth data for Mara is available in 113 out of the 132 years between 1892 and 2023 (113 years for girls and 3 years for boys). The Social Security Administration only reports birth data for years in which the name was given to at least five children of the same gender.

The name Mara has been given almost exclusively to girls, with 99.9% of all recorded births being female.

For girls, Mara reached its peak popularity in 2021, achieving the 51.0% percentile (ranked #459) with 317 births per million. The name was most common in 2021, with 317 births per million (ranked 51.0% percentile). Since reaching a low point around 2012, the popularity of this name for girls has been increasing. Currently, Mara ranks #498 for girls (47.5% percentile) with 293 births per million, which is 92.5% of its peak share of births.

For boys, Mara reached its peak popularity in 1989, achieving the 0.5% percentile (ranked #753) with 2 births per million. The name was most common in 1983, with 3 births per million (ranked 0.1% percentile). There have been no recorded male births with this name since 1989.

This chart shows the total number of births per million babies in each year for the name "Mara".

1892 2023 18922023

Key Statistics

Total Births
23,016
Peak Births
568
Peak Year
2021
First Recorded
1892
Peak Percentile
51.0%
Current Percentile
47.5%
Peak Rank
#459
Current Rank
#498
Female statistics
Total Births
16
Peak Births
6
Peak Year
1989
First Recorded
1982
Peak Percentile
0.5%
Current Percentile
Peak Rank
#753
Current Rank
Male statistics

How to Pronounce Mara

Our model has identified 2 different pronunciations for the name Mara. Click the play button under each pronunciation to hear it spoken aloud.

Our model is 79.6% confident that Mara is pronounced as MAH-ruh, which has 2 syllables. The next most likely pronunciation is MEH-ruh, at 20.4% confidence, with 2 syllables.

2
79.6%
2
20.4%
MAH-ruh (2 syllables)
Verified
79.6% confidence
M AA1 R AH0

Possible Additional Pronunciations

If none of the pronunciations above sound right to you, could you please check whether any of these related pronunciations should be applied to the name Mara? These are pronunciations that other similar names use, but which are not currently associated with Mara. If you think any of these are valid pronunciations for Mara, please vote using the thumbs up button.

About Pronunciation Data

Our confidence scores estimate the likelihood that a particular pronunciation is the most correct for a given name spelling. These scores are derived from pronunciation dictionaries, manual verification, your feedback, and a fine-tuned large language model trained to generate name pronunciations.

For any given spelling, confidence scores across all identified pronunciations sum to 100%. However, these scores don't account for the possibility of valid pronunciations that our model hasn't identified.

The raw pronunciations shown (like M AA1 R AH0) use the ARPAbet phoneme system, a standardized way to represent English speech sounds. Each symbol represents a distinct sound in American English. Visit the ARPAbet Wikipedia page to learn more about these phonetic symbols.

Pronunciation audio is generated by an open source text to speech model that has been customized to adhere to pronunciations provided in ARPAbet format, but sometimes pronunciations that differ subtly will sound identical, particularly if the only difference is the level of emphasis on a syllable or a single vowel sound.

© 2025 NamePlay.org

Made with ❤️ by Aaron J Becker