Marilyn

given name · English · Latin script

Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise

Marilyn is a given name, most frequently recorded in the Philippines, where it is the 46th most common given name. It appears chiefly in English and Spanish, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: Modern English blend of Mary and Lynn; from Hebrew Miryam.

rarermore common
  • PHPhilippines1 in 669◐
  • CACanada1 in 1.1K
  • GBUnited Kingdom1 in 1.2K

carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.

≈275K ●

across 10 countries

#762 ●

of 16M given names

2 ●

recorded for this name

Sources
508 ●

3.4M records

Official registry-verified

1 in 1.3K ◐

United States

Spellings & scripts●

MarilynLatin · English●3.4M records
מרליןHebrew · Hebrew●6.3K records

2 other spellings are counted as the same name:

Locally spelled מרלין in IL Israel, ZA South Africa and מרילין in FR France.

Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records; ○ marks a model's transliteration. Click a spelling to open its page.

Meaning & origin●

Modern English blend of Mary and Lynn; from Hebrew Miryam.

Sources 1

  • Le grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)

Attested across 26 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world●

Sorted by bearers counted by national registers, records where none counts.

Where Marilyn is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
PH Philippines#46249,679241K rec.—56KMarilyn135
US United States#179248,3522.7M rec.1 in 1.3K248KMarilyn508
GB United Kingdom#206166,059151K rec.—4Marilyn174
CA Canada#18873,00570K rec.—4Marilyn200
AU Australia#30069,68659K rec.—75Marilyn183
IT Italy#35921,29521K rec.—9Marilyn65
VE Venezuela—12,62624 rec.—3.9KMarilyn4
DE Germany#97911,14411K rec.—7Marilyn112
NL Netherlands—10,7765.8K rec.1 in 1.6K11KMarilyn60
SG Singapore#747,6497.6K rec.——Marilyn68
EC Ecuador#9537,543△389 rec.1 in 2.2K7.5KMarilyn27
RU Russia—7,3327.5K rec.——Marilyn32

Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table. How that works.

Languages●

  • English3.4M78%
  • Spanish329K8%
  • 132K3%
  • French62K1%
  • Portuguese34K1%
Show as table
Languages in which the name is recorded
NameRecordsNote
English3,372,03078%
Spanish329,4398%
131,5793%
French61,5221%
Portuguese34,4461%

Language is read off each record's context, not declared by the bearer; a share is of all records for this spelling.

Other names spelled this way◐

Marilyn is also recorded as 5 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Spanish given name496K records spelled Marilyn10 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, France, Peru, Argentina

    Languages: Spanish, French, Portuguese

    Also written Mari-Lyn, Márilyn, Märílýn, Marìlyn

  • a separate given name143K records spelled Marilyn2 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Italy

    Also written Mari-Lyn

  • Polish given name17K records spelled Marilyn22 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Poland, Czechia, United Kingdom

    Languages: Polish, Russian, Czech

    Also written Мэрилин, Marilyne, Merilin, Mārilyn, Мэрылін

  • Greek given name6.7K records spelled Marilyn5 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Greece, United States, Cyprus, United Kingdom

    Also written Μεριλιν, Merilin, Μαριλυν, Μάριλυν

  • Thai given name5.4K records spelled Marilyn4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Thailand, United States, Laos, Philippines

    Languages: Thai, Lao

    Also written Márilyn, Marilýn

71 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses●

Marilyn is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • In English, Form of Mary; often treated as a blend of Mary and Lynn

    as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…

  • In English, blend name, influenced by Mary and Lin/Lynn

    as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…

  • In English, A female given name originating as a coinage.

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • In Swedish, Marilyn är en engelsk kombination av → Mary och efterleden -lyn eller förnamnet Lynn. Det förknippas särskilt med den amerikanska skådespelerskan Marilyn Monroe (1926–62) som egentligen hette Norma Jeane Baker.

    as a nameFörnamn i Sverige. Kortfattat namnlexikon

  • In French, Origine hébraïque, « goutte de mer ».

    as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)

Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.

Over time●

05K10K15K19001950200012K · 1947

Show as table
Marilyn in SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present), United States, 1899–2025
Yearrecords
18995
190012
19016
190311
19046
190510
190624
190717
190825
190921
191018
191131
191256
191358
191475
1915109
1916146
1917164
1918245
1919404
1920522
1921696
19221,698
19232,286
19242,860
19253,419
19264,370
19275,554
19286,066
19296,731
19309,288
19319,664
193210,567
19339,126
19349,382
193510,418
193611,064
19379,739
19389,745
19399,538
19408,704
19418,556
19429,906
194310,145
19449,738
19459,534
194610,711
194711,881
19489,937
19499,865
19509,285
19519,148
19529,803
195310,742
195410,814
19558,409
19566,926
19575,743
19584,948
19594,343
19604,071
19613,797
19623,608
19633,314
19642,793
19652,490
19661,994
19671,960
19681,577
19691,398
19701,256
19711,216
1972856
1973777
1974725
1975651
1976648
1977608
1978634
1979559
1980579
1981579
1982582
1983612
1984509
1985522
1986488
1987532
1988547
1989628
1990582
1991584
1992680
1993599
1994552
1995576
1996611
1997567
1998518
1999481
2000524
2001553
2002507
2003514
2004499
2005513
2006598
2007599
2008545
2009524
2010536
2011535
2012744
2013837
2014798
2015748
2016634
2017585
2018498
2019467
2020457
2021409
2022423
2023378
2024436
2025356

US SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) — 126 years between 1899–2025. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.

Notable people with this name●

1920194019601980Marilyn Monroe, b. 1926Marilyn Bergman, b. 1929Marilyn Horne, b. 1934Marilyn Lightstone, b. 1940Marilyn Frye, b. 1941Diana Quick, b. 1946Marilyn Quayle, b. 1949Marilyn Chambers, b. 1952Marilyn Manson, b. 1969Tamia, b. 1975

The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).

Evidence●

Attested in 80 sources across 48 countries.

Official registers attesting Marilyn
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex2020248K#221
EC EcuadorINEC — civil registry names20247.5K#259
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des prénoms (1900–2024)20235.1K#3,059
CR Costa RicaTSE — electoral roll (padrón) names—3.3K#239
ES SpainINE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos)—708#3,630
ES SpainINE — Nombres más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal)—628#1,855
BR BrazilIBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror)2022624—
BR BrazilIBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname)—622#11,484
NO NorwaySSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population)—472#2,613
SE SwedenSkatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population)—449#2,986
BR BrazilIBGE — Nomes (census name API)—436#15,591
NL NetherlandsMeertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (live per-name BRP counts, 1790-2017)—360#3,907

Reference works 3

  • Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
  • Wikipedia given-name tokens
  • Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)

These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.

Register rows as of the 2026-09-12 data build · 891 rows in the corpus for this spelling.

Frequently asked questions

How common is the name Marilyn?
We estimate roughly 275 thousand people bear Marilyn (counting its spellings and scripts) across 10 countries in our records.
In which country does Marilyn have the most bearers?
Marilyn is most frequently recorded in the Philippines, where it is most often spelled marilyn.
How common is Marilyn compared with other names?
In the Philippines, Marilyn is the 46th most common given name of 462,140 given names recorded there.
Is Marilyn a male or female name?
Marilyn is a female name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
What does the name Marilyn mean?
Recorded meaning: Modern English blend of Mary and Lynn; from Hebrew Miryam.
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/marilyn

The same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. Rate-limited for casual use. Bulk access and licensing.

About this data

● measured from records◐ inferred from the name graph○ machine-generated

Data snapshot . Figures are rebuilt periodically and will change.

Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.

Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.

Cite this page Mondonomo, “Marilyn” — the 46th most common given name in Philippines. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.

See how Marilyn parses inside a full name →