Magan
Feminine · “pearl”
Magan was a place three thousand years before it was an American name. Sumerian and Akkadian tablets name it as the source of the empire's copper, and archaeologists now identify it with Oman and the coast opposite — a real country in the oldest written records there are.
How old is the name Magan?
Magan first appears in US birth records in 1968 — 57 years ago. The typical Magan alive today was born around 1989, making them about 36 years old. About 2,700 people named Magan are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Magan most popular?
Magan peaked in 1985, reaching #925 nationally. See the whole 1985 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Marged to Magan
The story of Magan
Cuneiform tablets from Mesopotamia record trade with three places down the Gulf: Dilmun, Magan and Meluhha. Magan supplied copper and diorite, its ships are mentioned in royal inscriptions, and one Akkadian king boasts of defeating it. Modern archaeology places it in what is now Oman and the United Arab Emirates, and the copper mines are still visible. None of that has anything to do with the American name, which is a respelling of a Welsh one and arrived in the nineteen-sixties. But the coincidence is exact, and it is the sort of thing worth knowing about a name that otherwise looks like a simple vowel swap.
Meaningscholars disagree
pearl
As a respelling of the Welsh name it descends from Margaret and carries the pearl. The ancient place name is an unrelated coincidence, as is the Hebrew word for a shield spelled the same way.
How the name formed
- Marged
- Megan
- Magan
Related forms: Megan
Pronouncing Magan
MAY-gun
Two syllables with the weight at the front. Read as Welsh it would have a short e; the a suggests a long vowel the original does not have.
Nicknames for Magan
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
- 1968
- Most girls named
- 1990181 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #925reached in 1985
- Change vs 2010
- −20.0%8 in 2011, from 10
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.
Magan in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Megan in Welsh — spelling variant
Magans among us
people named Magan 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
Magan 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
- Every sound in it is easy in English and the name is read at sight.
- Meg is one of the most established short forms in the language.
- It is genuinely uncommon while the name behind it is very familiar.
- Megan is the standard spelling and will be written instead.
- The a suggests a vowel the Welsh name does not have, so it will be said two ways.
- It reads clearly as a name of the second half of the twentieth century.
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What they receive
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Magan
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Magans are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 2,700 people named Magan are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Magan in 2025?
- Magan is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Magan with classmates?
- Magan 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 Magan? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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