Marcos
Meaning
“Spanish form of Marcus/Mark, traditionally linked to Mars”
Famously borne by Marcos Galperin, co-founder and CEO of MercadoLibre.
The story
Marcos is the Spanish and Portuguese form of Marcus, the old Roman name tradition ties to Mars, and in the American record it is a century of steady arrival: about 200 in the 1910s, 1,100 in the 1950s, 4,600 in the 1970s, 11,900 in the 1990s, 13,600 in the 2000s, then 8,000 in the 2010s and 3,700 so far this decade. That staircase is the story of Spanish-speaking America itself, each step a generation more families writing the name the way their Bibles write the evangelist: the Gospel of Mark is the Gospel according to San Marcos. In our records it goes to boys about 53,600 to 160. Marquitos is the standard Spanish diminutive, and Mark waits one translation away, but the -os ending is the point: the same Roman name, kept in the family's own language.
Marcos around the world
One shared root links 19 names across 8 languages.
Shared root: from Latin Marcus, a Roman praenomen traditionally derived from Mars, the war god; Marcellus is its diminutive
The constellation
12 more branches of this family
Popularity, 1890–2024
Shape drawn from US Social Security baby-name records. Marcos peaked in the 2000s and the 2010s in nearly equal measure.
Popularity in Brazil
1,082,739 people · the #13 first name in Brazil · about 1 in 188 · median age 35
Among people named Marcos living in Brazil at the 2022 census, more were born in the 1970s than in any other decade.
The census also counted 19,411 born between 2020 and August 2022, too recent a span to chart.
Source: IBGE, Censo Demográfico 2022
The Marcos deep dive
Whether you’re naming a baby or exploring your own name’s history, this is a personal letter, not a list: where Marcos truly comes from, how it traveled, and what a century of records reveals. If you have grown a tree on nametree, it also considers how Marcos fits with your family’s names and surname.
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