Haig
Masculine · “from Hayk”
Haig arrives in American records from two directions at once — an Armenian first name and a Scottish surname — and the years it appears in fit both. The Armenian one carries the name of the figure Armenians say their whole country is called after.
How old is the name Haig?
Haig first appears in US birth records in 1913 — 112 years ago. The typical Haig alive today was born around 1940, making them about 85 years old. About 300 people named Haig are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Haig most popular?
Haig peaked in 1922, reaching #1333 nationally. See the whole 1922 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
Origin, sound and short forms
The story of Haig
Armenians do not call their country Armenia. They call it Hayastan, and themselves Hay, and the name is traced to Hayk — a patriarch in the national legend who is said to have refused to submit to a Babylonian king, led his people north to the mountains, and killed the king with an arrow at enormous range. The story is first written down in the fifth century by a historian working from older oral material, at exactly the period when Armenian was first being written at all. Armenia, the name everyone else uses, is an exonym: it comes through Old Persian and Greek from something else entirely, and turns up in the Behistun inscription. So the country has two names of quite different ages, and the older-sounding one is the foreign one.
Meaningscholars disagree
from Hayk, the legendary founder, or from a Scottish place
The Armenian name belongs to a legendary ancestor and the word itself is not explained beyond him. The Scottish surname comes from a place name meaning an enclosure. The two have nothing in common and American records hold both under this spelling.
Pronouncing Haig
HAYG
One syllable. Armenian says it with a slightly different vowel and a harder final consonant, and the Scottish surname is said the same way an English reader would guess.
Nicknames for Haig
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
- 1913
- Most boys named
- 192230 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1333reached in 1922
- Change vs 2011
- +20.0%6 in 2019, from 5
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.
Haig in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Հայկ in Armenian — same name
Haigs among us
people named Haig are estimated to be alive in the US today
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Haig sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- One syllable is short, clear and carries across a room.
- Four letters with no silent ones make it impossible to misspell after hearing it.
- It is genuinely rare while being entirely readable at first sight.
- Haigh and Hague will both be written for it.
- A First World War commander carries the surname and the association is not a warm one.
- The two possible origins are unrelated, so the meaning question has two answers.
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Haig
Masculine
Frequently asked
- How many Haigs are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 300 people named Haig are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Haig in 2025?
- Haig is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 boy names.
- Will my child share the name Haig with classmates?
- Haig will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More H names
The most-given names starting with H, all years combined.
Henry#5 · Harold#991 · Harry#775 · Howard#1002 · Hunter#130 · Herbert#2641 · Herman#2363 · Harvey#251
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Haig? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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