Holiday Calendar

National Marcus Day

Next celebratedMonday, February 15, 2027

Marcus is the Roman original of the name English shortens to Mark, and February 15 leaves it at full length. The emperor who carried it wrote his notebook in Greek, and nobody is sure he meant anyone else to read it.

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Last updated September 7, 2026 · by the Holiday Calendar TeamHave an update or spot an error?
YEARLY DATEFebruary 15
OBSERVED INUnited States
CATEGORYNames
ORIGIN

Community Origin

FOUNDING ENTITY
Not documented
FIRST OBSERVED
Not documented
HOW THE HOLIDAY CAME TO BE

The name is documented; the day is not.

No documented founder or formal establishment record has been identified for National Marcus Day. Searches that exclude this site and the other holiday-listing sites return nothing that documents the observance, so neither the date nor the name can be attributed to anyone.

+ Know the story? Submit a founder Help us complete this holiday
INTRO

Marcus passed Mark by standing still

In every year of the 1880-2005 stretch of the Social Security Administration's national name files, American parents named more boys Mark than Marcus. Then the order flipped, and it stayed flipped for seventeen straight years. National Marcus Day arrives on February 15 with no founder on record, which leaves the registry as the honest place to look.

The flip was not a Marcus revival. Over the six years to the crossover the number of American boys given the name barely moved, rising by sixteen births. Mark lost 37.8 percent of its count over the same six years and simply came down past a name that was holding still.

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ORIGINS

Marcus Day history

INTRODUCTION

Marcus is the Roman spelling of a name English mostly renders as Mark. Behind the Name files it as a praenomen, a given name, and puts it among the most popular of them.

CHAPTER 01

Probably a god, and a hedge worth keeping

Where the name comes from is not settled. The standard reference says Marcus was probably derived from Mars, the Roman god, and that hedge is the source's own word rather than a softening added here. The same entry names Cicero, Mark Antony and Marcus Aurelius among the men who carried it.

The last of those did not start out as an emperor, and Britannica gives his name at birth as Marcus Annius Verus. He took the throne in 161 and held it until his death. The private notebook that made him famous was written in ancient Greek rather than Latin, and whether he meant anyone else to read it is, in the same source's words, uncertain.

CHAPTER 02

What the American file actually shows

Marcus enters the American file at 47 boys in its opening year. In 1970 the name's share of the boys in the file rose further than in any other year since the records begin, and the raw count came close to doubling. That was also when Marcus walked into the American top 100 for the first time, alongside several other boys' names that jumped in the same year.

The peak needs no qualifier. The name's highest American count, its best rank and its largest share of male births all land in 1984, so there is no need to say which peak is meant. That year the file counted 5,996 boys named Marcus, and the rank it earned holds under either ranking convention.

CHAPTER 03

A day the file cannot account for

The record for the name is deep. The record for the day is not: no founder, no organisation, no proclamation, and nothing at all that dates the choice of February 15. Searches that leave out this site and the other holiday-listing sites turn up nothing that documents the observance, which is a result rather than a gap in the searching.

WHY THIS DAY MATTERS

Why National Marcus Day Matters

Registries

More babies in England and Wales were registered as Marcus than as Mark in 2025, by 170 to 156.

England and Wales keep their own count, and it runs on the same side. In the ONS annual boys' files, more babies were registered as Marcus than as Mark in 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025, ending with 170 against 156. The England and Wales series is less settled than the American one, and the two names traded places there as recently as 2021, so this is a lead rather than a rout. The two countries are not comparable by rank. A top-100 place means something different in a file of a different size with a different privacy floor, so the honest comparison is the count inside each.

Bearers

Two Marcuses, a century apart, in the governments' own files

The National Archives records that Marcus Mosiah Garvey Jr. was born in Saint Ann's Bay, Jamaica, on 17 August 1887, and that the Universal Negro Improvement Association was formed in Jamaica in July 1914. A century later the Cabinet Office's 2020 Birthday Honours list made Marcus Rashford an MBE with the citation 'Footballer, England and Manchester United. For services to Vulnerable Children in the UK during Covid-19'. He is the only person among the 1,498 on that list whose given name is Marcus.

Calendar

There is a Marcus day with a paper trail, and it is in August

Jamaica's government set 17 August aside for Marcus Garvey in 2012, on the 125th anniversary of his birth, in a proclamation read by the Governor General that states the day shall not be a public holiday. That is what a designated Marcus day looks like when somebody designates one: a dated instrument, a named official, and an explicit limit on what the designation does.

BY THE NUMBERS

National Marcus Day by the Numbers

241,657
Social Security records of boys named Marcus, 1880 to 2025
146 of 146
Yearly US birth-name files that list Marcus, since 1880
31 years
Marcus inside the US top 100, unbroken, 1970 to 2000
76 years
Marcus inside the US top 300, unbroken, 1950 to 2025

TIMELINE

Timeline

A boy called Marcus Annius Verus

Britannica dates the birth of the future emperor to 26 April 121, in Rome, under a name he would not keep.

Marcus Aurelius takes the empire

His reign runs to 180. During campaigns on the Danube he probably writes the Meditations in the early 170s, in ancient Greek, a private notebook he may never have meant anyone to read.

Garvey forms the UNIA

The National Archives records that the Universal Negro Improvement Association was formed in Jamaica in July, by a man born in Saint Ann's Bay in 1887.

Marcus enters the US top 100

The count of American boys given the name almost doubles in a single year, carrying it into the top 100 for the first time since the national records begin.

One year, three peaks

The name's highest American count, best rank and largest share of male births all fall in the same year, at 5,996 boys.

More Marcuses than Marks

For the first time since the files begin, American boys named Marcus outnumber those named Mark. They do so in every year through 2022.

GET INVOLVED

How to Observe National Marcus Day

EDITOR'S PICK

Pull the file and check the numbers

Every American figure on this page comes out of one download. SSA publishes the full national name files, one plain text file per year of birth since 1880, and the bundled readme explains the alphabetical tiebreak and the five-occurrence privacy floor that shapes what you see. Anyone who wants to check the Marcus and Mark counts can do it in an afternoon.

READ

Read the Meditations knowing which language they are in

Britannica calls the Meditations fragmentary notes, discursive and epigrammatic by turn, so the sections stand alone and a short sitting is enough for a real taste. Read it knowing that a Roman emperor wrote his innermost thoughts in Greek, which the same entry treats as a measure of how far the union of the two cultures had gone.

COMPARE

Compare your own name across two countries

Do it in counts, not places. The ONS historical tables run back to 1904 on full civil registration, and reading them beside the SSA files shows how differently two governments can count the same name.

SPEND

Spend an hour in the Garvey holdings

The National Archives points to the Marcus Garvey and UNIA Association Papers project, a World War I draft registration card in his name, and the court file for USA v. Marcus Garvey. The last two sit on DocsTeach as individual document pages, so they open without a research request.

TELL

Tell a Marcus which list he is on

Of the 45,481 distinct boys' names that appear anywhere in the American files, only 471 turn up in every one of the 146 years since the records begin. Marcus is one of them. That is a sharper thing to say to someone on his day than that his name is old.

Test your knowledge

How well do you know National Marcus Day?

1 / 8

Which Roman god is the name Marcus probably derived from?

Answer

No. It has no legal standing anywhere that could be found: no federal, state or municipal instrument names it, and no organisation runs it.

COLOPHON

Sources

How we know what’s on this page. References, not endorsements.

10sources
7primary records
7independently dated
Primary records
U.S. Social Security AdministrationTabulated as of 1 March 2026
Beyond the Top 1000 Names (national data)
The complete national year-of-birth name files, one per year from 1880 to 2025, from which every American count, share and rank on this page was recomputed. The bundled readme states the alphabetical tiebreak used for ties and the five-occurrence privacy floor below which a name is withheld.
View source
Office for National Statistics2025 edition released 9 July 2026
Baby names for boys in England and Wales
The annual ranked lists of every boys' name registered in England and Wales, with counts, from which the 2022 to 2025 Marcus and Mark figures are taken.
View source
Office for National StatisticsReleased 31 July 2025
Top 100 baby names in England and Wales: historical data
Decennial top-100 boys' and girls' tables for England and Wales from 1904 to 2024, compiled from civil registration on the exact spelling given at birth, with counts of two or fewer redacted. The cover sheet states that grouping names with similar pronunciation would change the rankings.
View source
U.S. National Archives
Marcus Garvey (August 17, 1887 - June 10, 1940)
The archives' research page for Garvey, giving his birth in Saint Ann's Bay, Jamaica, his death in 1940, and the formation of the UNIA in Jamaica in July 1914, alongside the holdings it points researchers to.
View source
UK Cabinet Office10 October 2020
Queen's Birthday Honours List 2020 (published list)
The government's own published honours list, in which Marcus Rashford appears as a Member of the Order of the British Empire with the citation quoted on this page. He is the only person among its 1,498 entries whose given name is Marcus.
View source
GOV.UK10 October 2020
Birthday Honours Lists 2020
The Cabinet Office collection page that publishes the 2020 Birthday Honours and links the civil, military and overseas lists.
View source
Jamaica Information Service17 August 2012
Gov't Declares August 17 Marcus Garvey Day
The government's own account of the 2012 proclamation setting August 17 as Marcus Garvey Day for the 125th anniversary of his birth, read by Governor General Sir Patrick Allen, including its statement that the day shall not be a public holiday.
View source
Additional coverage
Behind the NameEntry updated 26 May 2026
Meaning, origin and history of the name Marcus
The onomastics reference entry for Marcus, which files it as a Roman praenomen probably derived from the god Mars, calls it among the most popular of the Roman praenomina, and notes that the English form Mark has historically been the more common spelling in English.
View source
Encyclopaedia Britannica
Marcus Aurelius, Roman emperor
The biography giving his birth name Marcus Annius Verus, his birth on 26 April 121 in Rome, and his reign as emperor from 161 to 180.
View source
Encyclopaedia Britannica
Meditations, work by Marcus Aurelius
The entry on the Meditations, which states that they were written in ancient Greek, probably in the early 170s during campaigns along the Danube, and that whether Marcus intended them for any eyes but his own is uncertain.
View source
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