Maegen
Feminine · “A pearl”
Maegen puts a Latin letter pair into a Welsh name, where it has no business at all — and the Welsh name is itself a diminutive, built the way Welsh builds them.
How old is the name Maegen?
Maegen first appears in US birth records in 1974 — 51 years ago. The typical Maegen alive today was born around 1989, making them about 36 years old. About 900 people named Maegen are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Maegen most popular?
Maegen peaked in 1985, reaching #2048 nationally. See the whole 1985 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Margaret to Maegen
The story of Maegen
Welsh makes familiar forms by taking the front of a name and adding a small ending, exactly as English does — Meg plus a tail, the same operation that gives Peggy and Maggie elsewhere. What is different is what happened next: the Welsh form crossed into English as a full name in its own right, so that a nickname in one language became a formal name in another, and English speakers now use it without any sense that it is short for anything. The letter pair at the front of this spelling comes from a different world entirely. It is a Latin digraph, used in English for words borrowed from Greek and Latin, and putting it into a Welsh name is a decorative gesture with no historical basis whatsoever.
Meaningscholars disagree
A pearl, at three removes
The name is a Welsh affectionate form of Margaret, whose Greek original means a pearl. Whether a diminutive of a diminutive still carries the meaning is a fair question; what is certain is that the word for the gem is three steps back from this spelling.
How the name formed
- Margaret
- Megan
- Maegen
Related forms: Megan
Pronouncing Maegen
MEG-un
Two syllables, stress at the front. The ae pair is said as a plain short e.
Nicknames for Maegen
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
- 1974
- Most girls named
- 199053 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #2048reached in 1985
- Change vs 2006
- +16.7%7 in 2008, from 6
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.
Maegen in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Megan in Welsh — same name
Maegens among us
people named Maegen 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
Maegen 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
- It is read correctly on sight in spite of the letter pair.
- It carries a very old name at the end of a short chain.
- The short forms are warm and thoroughly established.
- Megan, Meghan and Maegan are all in use and hers will be written as one of them.
- The ae is Latin decoration on a Welsh name.
- The name is closely tied to a particular stretch of decades.
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Maegen
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Maegens are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 900 people named Maegen are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Maegen in 2025?
- Maegen is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Maegen with classmates?
- Maegen will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More M names
The most-given names starting with M, all years combined.
Mary#125 · Margaret#112 · Michelle#465 · Melissa#419 · Maria#87 · Martha#712 · Marie#617 · Mildred#1962
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Maegen? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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