Marva

Where Marva comes from

Marva hasn't made it into the dictionaries we draw on, and nobody well known enough for an encyclopedia has carried it yet — so for now its story is the one the SSA record tells. Names that spell a familiar sound a new way often live here for a while before anyone writes them down.

  • Vowel-ended
Along the way
  1. 1913
    First appearance
    #3,187 among girls, 5 babies — the first year at least five got the name.
  2. 1936
    Marva Collins born
    American schoolteacher
  3. 1936
    Peak, #333
    350 babies named Marva — more than any year before or since.
  4. 1944
    Marva Whitney born
    American singer
  5. 1958
    The fade
    The first year with half the peak's births — down to #755.
In the dictionary

No dictionary entry for this spelling — which is its own kind of rare.

Namesakes
  • Marva Whitney · American singer, 1944–2012
  • Marva Collins · American schoolteacher, 1936–2015
  • Marva Hicks · American musician, 1956–2022
  • Marva Wright · American singer, 1948–2010

Sources: the origin note and dictionary entry are quoted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0); the namesakes come from Wikidata (CC0); the milestones are worked out from the SSA record.