The baby name Marigold is ready to leave the garden for the nursery.
Thanks to Lyndsay for suggesting our Baby Name of the Day.
FROM THE GARDEN
If there was nothing more to the baby name Marigold than flower power status, it would still be rising in popularity. Names like Azalea and Dahlia are racing up the popularity charts, after all. Trees and herbs are big, too.
Nearly anything growing in the garden has potential.
So at first glance, Marigold just fits in with this bigger trend – a flower that sounds sufficiently like a girl’s name to capture parents’ attention.
MARY’S GOLD
But it turns out that the name Marigold has all sorts of meaning.
The name’s English origin is a contraction of the phrase “Mary’s gold.”
While the Virgin Mary was a humble, ordinary woman in the stories about her life, the golden flowers have long been associated with the saint. Marigolds were placed by her statue, symbolizing her golden crown. Legend tells about a time Mary was accosted by a gang of thieves. When they opened her purse, marigolds fell out instead of coins.
Of course, the name marigold didn’t definitely attach to the flower until the 1300s. In Old English, it was simply called golde.
All of this makes Marigold an offbeat elaboration of Mary, and a name with meaning beyond the garden.
MORE than MARY
Marigolds are also strongly associated with the sun, particularly in Hinduism.
The Aztecs used them in religious ceremonies. That’s probably why they’re such significant flowers for Dias de los Muertos celebrations today.
They were used for medicinal purposes in the ancient world. By the Victorian era, they were a flower more strongly associated with mourning and remembrance.
These many meanings reflect how common marigolds are across much of the world.
FAMOUS FIGURES
While the baby name Marigold has never been particularly common, it’s not unknown.
The US Census records give us a smattering of girls by the name in the mid to late 1800s, and it often appears on lists of Victorian flower names.
The early twentieth century gives us two notable uses.
Winston and Clementine Churchill named their fourth child Marigold Frances. She was born just days after the end of the first World War. Sadly, she died of illness at the age of three.
A few years later, Lucy Maud Montgomery penned Magic for Marigold. The 1929 story was about a farmgirl named after an aunt. The story details Marigold’s experiences growing up.
MORE RECENT MARIGOLDS
Marigold has slowly been attracting more and more attention over the last two decades.
- Jean Ferris has written a young adult series about a Princess by the name. The first book is called Once Upon a Marigold. Sequels followed.
- Rufus Wainwright’s “Rebel Prince” is about a girl named Marigold.
- In 2007, a Bollywood-meets-Hollywood musical/comedy/romance was titled Marigold. Ali Larter
played the main character, an American B-list actress stranded in Mumbai after a movie falls through. Instead, Marigold lands a role in a local flick and falls for the choreographer, played by Bollywood star Salman Khan. - Then came The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, a 2012 movie about a group of British pensioners who chose to retire to a hotel in India for a variety of reasons. Based on a 2004 novel called These Foolish Things, the movie was enough of a success to inspire a 2015 sequel.
DOWNTON ABBEY
Then came Downton Abbey’s fifth season. Warning: spoilers ahead.
After hiding her secret pregnancy, middle Crawley sister Edith gives birth to a daughter. She names her Marigold. Instead of giving her up for adoption in Switzerland as originally planned, she brings her to Downton, and persuades a local farmer and his wife to take her in. But Edith can’t bear to be parted from her daughter.
Drama follows, but there’s ultimately a happy ending.
The show never reveals why Edith chose the name, but the Crawley family also includes the imposing Violet and cousin Rose, so Marigold fits right in.
BY the NUMBERS
How common is the name Marigold?
As of 2021, it had never cracked the US Top 1000.
In 2014, the year we learned Edith’s daughter was named Marigold, 30 girls received the name. By 2016, that number increased to 93 births.
As of 2021? 247 girls received the name.
It’s a significant leap, enough to suggest Marigold might join the Top 1000 popularity ranks soon.
If the popularity of the name Marigold increases, it won’t only be thanks to the TV show.
The nickname Goldie is another draw – and Goldie is an increasingly popular name, too, recently returning to the US Top 1000. It can also be shortened to Mari or Mary, Margo, and maybe even Maggie.
BOLD BOTANICAL
Parents who love Violet and Daisy and Juniper might be interested in finding even more bold botanical names. The baby name Marigold fits right in.
Factor in additional meanings and significance, as well as a famous fictional character that puts the baby name Marigold on parents’ radar, and it’s easy to imagine this floral name will continue to flourish.
What do you think of the baby name Marigold?
This post was originally published on March 22, 2010. It was revised and re-posed on March 2, 2015 and again on May 3, 2023.
My daughter Marigold was born in 2014 before the Downton character… And I’m asked often if that is where I got her name. I’ve actually never seen an episode! I fell in love with the name after reading Magic for Marigold as a kid. She’s our little Goldie girl. The only annoyance is when I introduce her, people hear “miracle” instead of Marigold. Lol. They’ll say, “miracle?” Ugh, no Marigold… I have started to introduce her as Goldie. I do not want this name to become a trend!
LOVE this name. My mother’s name is Mary and my grandmother’s was Goldie. Such the perfect combination of the two … Makes me want to get pregnant with a little girl right now. 🙂
I CRINGED when Marigold’s name was first mentioned on Downton Abbey! My daughter is one of the 26 born in 2013, and I thought it was safe from a surge in popularity! To be completely honest, I was hoping some tragedy would befall little Marigold, and she’d have a short life on the show.
Ha ha! I did at first, too, but then I started to like hearing the name said aloud on the show. It’s one you never hear.
I really hope it doesn’t increase in popularity, though. I don’t want MY Marigold to be part of a fad.
Marigold is right at the top of my list if I ever have a daughter. Love the sprightly sound, love the flower, love the spiritual underpinning – and Goldie is such a cute nickname for a little girl! On the one hand, I hope the Downton reference doesn’t make her too popular here in the UK, on the other, it might diminish her association with a very well-known brand of rubber gloves! The response of pretty much everyone I’ve mentioned the name to has been, ‘Like the glove?!’.
I love Marigold so much. Unfortunately, with my husband’s last name, it would sound like merry-go-round, and that is not my jam.
For fictional representations, there’s a great character in the webcomic Questionable Content named Marigold Farmer. She’s a little shy, a little awkward, but very lovable and a reasonable namesake.
So glad you mentioned Magic for Marigold! The chapter where they are discussing what to name her is one of my favorite fictional chapters ever. (Montgomery really understood the value of the right name — witness Anne/Cordelia, and Diana’s views about living so as to beautify your name.)
Yes!!! That was the book that gave my daughter her name! I read that book in 6th grade, fell in love with the name and that particular chapter, and twenty-five years later, still loved it enough to call my daughter Marigold. Love, love, LOVE!
I’ve wondered why Julian Fellows, writer of Downton Abbey, would choose Marigold as the name for Edith’s daughter since Edith and her sister Mary don’t get on at all. It seems that Marigold is pronounced both ways by various characters in the series — sometimes Mar-ih-gold, but often as Mary-gold. It’s not believable that Edith would choose that name for her daughter.
I agree that it’s not believable and wonder if we’ll hear the story as to her name.
I disagree. I think it is a believable name for Edith’s daughter. Because of Edith’s hair color, I imagine she could have been called Marigold as a small child, or perhaps it was a term of endearment that Gregson used for Edith.