girls:
1.6k births since 1915
#4121 (28th percentile)
boys:
21k births since 1884
#795 (83rd percentile)
overall:
22.6k births since 1884
#1685 (78th percentile)
The name Marlin is the #1,685 most popular name of all time in the U.S. on a gender-neutral basis, with a total of 22,632 recorded births since 1884. This represents the 78.2% percentile of name popularity (more popular than 78.2% of all names). For boys, it ranks #795 (82.7% percentile) for all time with 20,995 births since 1884. For girls, it ranks #4,121 (27.9% percentile) for all time with 1,637 births since 1915.
Marlin first appeared in U.S. birth records in 1884 (1884 for boys and 1915 for girls). Birth data for Marlin is available in 130 out of the 140 years between 1884 and 2023 (130 years for boys and 99 years for girls). 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 Marlin has been given almost exclusively to boys, with 92.8% of all recorded births being male. In 2023, 82.0% of babies named Marlin were boys.
For boys, Marlin reached its peak popularity in 1935, achieving the 50.5% percentile (ranked #256) with 361 births per million. The name was most common in 1935, with 361 births per million (ranked 50.5% percentile). Since reaching a low point around 2020, the popularity of this name for boys has been increasing. Currently, Marlin ranks #834 for boys (8.5% percentile) with 45 births per million, which is 12.4% of its peak share of births.
For girls, Marlin reached its peak popularity in 1991, achieving the 4.4% percentile (ranked #813) with 21 births per million. The name was most common in 1991, with 21 births per million (ranked 4.4% percentile). Since reaching a high point in 2008, the popularity of this name for girls has been declining. Currently, Marlin ranks #934 for girls (1.4% percentile) with 10 births per million, which is 49.8% of its peak share of births.
This chart shows the total number of births per million babies in each year for the name "Marlin".
These names exclude other spelling variations of Marlon. View all variations of Marlon.
These similar-looking names have spellings that are closest to the spelling of "Marlin", in the sense that there are the fewest number of letter differences between the two spellings. This list excludes the 5 other name spellings that we've determined are also variations of "Marlon" based on shared pronunciations. Click here for more details on names that are pronounced like Marlon..
Our model has identified 2 different pronunciations for the name Marlin. Click the play button under each pronunciation to hear it spoken aloud.
Our model is 85.1% confident that Marlin is pronounced as MAHR-lihn, which has 2 syllables. The next most likely pronunciation is MAHR-luhn, at 14.9% confidence, with 2 syllables.
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 Marlin? These are pronunciations that other similar names use, but which are not currently associated with Marlin. If you think any of these are valid pronunciations for Marlin, please vote using the thumbs up button.
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 L IH0 N) 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.
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