girl's name
Marie-Claude
ma-REE KLOHD
- Origin French
- Gender Girl
- Letters 12
- Births on record 58,495
Marie-Claude joins two names whose meanings pull in opposite directions — Marie's own sense has never been settled, while Claude's is uncomfortably plain, descending from the Latin for lame. It peaked in France in 1948 and charts nowhere in our current-year data.
- Marie-Claude is a name of French origin.
- Peaked in France in 1948, when 3,195 babies were given the name.
- It has largely dropped out of use in France.
- First appears in birth records in 1918.
Marie-Claude over time
Births per decade in France, 1910s to 2010s. The striped bar is the 2010s, still in progress — it covers 2010 to 2011, not a full ten years.
Show the numbers
| Decade | Births |
|---|---|
| 1910s | 10 |
| 1920s | 110 |
| 1930s | 1,455 |
| 1940s | 17,340 |
| 1950s | 24,995 |
| 1960s | 11,330 |
| 1970s | 2,110 |
| 1980s | 295 |
| 1990s | 80 |
| 2000s | 30 |
| 2010s (to 2011) | 5 |
What Marie-Claude means
Marie-Claude joins Marie to Claude. Claude means lame, from the Latin claudus, while Marie has no established meaning, so only half the compound can be translated at all.
Where Marie-Claude comes from
Marie-Claude is a French compound of the mid twentieth century, when hyphenated pairs — Marie-Claire, Jean-Pierre, Anne-Sophie — were the dominant fashion. Marie descends from the Hebrew Miriam, for which bitter, beloved and rebellious have all been proposed and none established; the name may be Egyptian rather than Hebrew. Claude comes from the Roman Claudius, built on claudus, lame, an uncomplimentary byname that an imperial family made prestigious.
Marie-Claude in use
Marie-Claude peaked in France in 1948, when 3,195 babies were registered, and our data marks it faded. It charts in none of the six markets we track in the most recent year, despite 57,760 lifetime births. Every one of those births is French, which is what a hyphenated French compound looks like in our data — the pattern never crossed into English-speaking use.
How popular is Marie-Claude?
In 2011, Marie-Claude was given to 5 babies in France. It was given to fewer than five babies in the most recent year of published US data.
Where Marie-Claude is used
French counts are rounded to the nearest five and nothing below five is published, so these figures show the shape of the name's use rather than an exact tally. Data & sources.
Names that peaked alongside Marie-Claude
These names rose and fell in the same era, which is why they tend to sound like they belong together.
Parents who like Marie-Claude also like
Names whose popularity has risen and fallen in step with Marie-Claude over the last century — the same taste, a different name.
Marie-Claude in other languages
The same name as it is spelled elsewhere — not shortenings, and not different names that merely sound alike. Each one has its own record here.
- French
- Claude
- Other forms
- Forms we hold no single language for — some are used across several, some are simply spelled differently.
- Claudette Marie-Claire
Sibling names for Marie-Claude
Names from the same era that won't rhyme or share an initial with Marie-Claude — the two things that make a sibling set grate.
Common questions about Marie-Claude
What does Marie-Claude mean?
Claude means lame, from the Latin claudus. Marie's own meaning is unsettled.
Why are French names hyphenated?
A mid twentieth-century fashion that also gave Marie-Claire and Jean-Pierre.
Is Marie-Claude used outside France?
Effectively not. Every birth in our records is French.
Is it still used?
Our data marks it faded. It charts in none of our six markets in the current year.
Is Marie-Claude a girl's or a boy's name?
Marie-Claude is given almost entirely to girls in birth records.
When was Marie-Claude most popular?
Marie-Claude peaked in 1948, when 3,195 babies were given the name. It has largely dropped out of use.