Gaige
Masculine · “Old French gage”
Gaige is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 4,417 boys against 127 girls since 1880.
A gage was a pledge, and specifically an object thrown down to guarantee it, which is where throwing down the gauntlet comes from. The word survives almost nowhere on its own now, but it is still inside mortgage, which means a dead pledge, one that dies when the debt is paid.
How old is the name Gaige?
Gaige first appears in US birth records in 1989 — 36 years ago. The typical Gaige alive today was born around 2007, making them about 18 years old. About 4,400 people named Gaige are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Gaige most popular?
Gaige peaked in 2007, reaching #781 nationally. Today it ranks #8910, 8,129 places below that high. See the whole 2007 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From gage to Gaige
The story of Gaige
Gage is one of the small group of legal French words that entered English with the Normans and then mostly retreated into compounds. On its own it now appears only in historical writing, but it is fully alive inside mortgage, from mort gage, a dead pledge: the pledge dies either when the debt is paid or when the land is forfeited, which is how the medieval lawyers explained the term. Engage is the same word with a prefix, meaning to bind by pledge, which is why an engagement is a promise before it is anything else. Wage and wager are the Norman forms of the same root, arriving through a different dialect, so wage and gage are one word twice. The surname preserves the noun in its oldest English sense, at a point when a gage was a physical thing you handed over.
Meaningscholars disagree
Old French gage, a pledge
Gaige is a respelling of Gage, an English surname from Old French gage, a pledge or security, an occupational or metonymic name. A second source is Old French jauger, to measure, giving a maker of measuring rods, and both are proposed for the surname. The added i is a modern American respelling with no effect on the sound. The peak of this spelling is 2007.
How the name formed
- gage
- Gage
- Gaige
Related forms: Gage · Gage
Pronouncing Gaige
GAYJ
One syllable. Gaige and Gage are homophones; the i adds a letter without adding a sound, in the same way the i in Paige does.
Nicknames for Gaige
Moderate
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1989
- Most boys named
- 2007279 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #781reached in 2007
- Change vs 2024
- −38.5%8 in 2025, from 13
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Gaige in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Gage in English — spelling variant
- Gage in French — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, Florida, Pennsylvania.
Gaiges among us
people named Gaige are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 213,510 born in 2025 was named Gaige
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Leopoldo test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Gaige's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Leopoldo climbed just as high around 1929, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Leopoldo's path sketches the road Gaige is walking now.
Gaige sits in the calm middle of the cycle — neither chasing a wave nor sliding off one. Middle-of-the-cycle names age slowly and predictably.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Gaige beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Gaige in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- One syllable and no possible mispronunciation.
- It is a genuine English surname with a documented origin.
- The word behind it has an unusually interesting history.
- Gage is the standard spelling and much commoner.
- The added i does nothing phonetically.
- It will be spelled out on introduction.
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What they receive
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Gaige
Masculine · #8910 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Gaiges are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 4,400 people named Gaige are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Gaige in 2025?
- Gaige ranks #8910 among US boy names in 2025, with 8 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Gaige?
- About 1 in every 213,510 US boys born in 2025 was named Gaige — 8 in all.
- Will my child share the name Gaige with classmates?
- Gaige will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Gaige
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Davie#8910 · Ned#8910 · Darious#8910 · Alois#8910 · Len#8910 · Barton#8910 · Desmon#8910 · Winfield#8910
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Gaige? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Gaige and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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