Margaret
Masculine · “pearl”
Margaret is given to girls far more often — 1,264,774 girls against 3,745 boys since 1880. See Margaret as a girl name
Margaret has been one of the standard names of the English-speaking world for the better part of a thousand years, and it has produced more disguised short forms than any other. What is less well known is that the medieval English mouth produced two full names out of it as well, and both are still in use as though they were separate.
How old is the name Margaret?
Margaret first appears in US birth records in 1881 — 144 years ago. The typical Margaret alive today was born around 1932, making them about 93 years old. About 1,200 people named Margaret are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Margaret most popular?
Margaret peaked in 1907, reaching #388 nationally. See the whole 1907 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From margarites to Margaret
The story of Margaret
Scotland is where the name became royal. Margaret arrived there as an Anglo-Saxon princess raised in Hungarian exile, married Malcolm the Third, and spent her life reorganising the court and the Scottish church around her; she was canonized, her descendants ruled for centuries, and every Scottish family with any pretension named daughters after her. Meanwhile English speech was doing what it does to long names. Margaret in a medieval English mouth came out as Margery, and Margery in a Norman-French one as Marjorie, and both were written down as names in their own right and have been treated as separate ever since — which is why a Marjorie and a Margaret are often surprised to learn they are the same person.
Meaning
pearl
The Greek margarites, a pearl, which the language took from further east along the trade routes that brought the pearls themselves.
How the name formed
- margarites
- Margarita
- Margaret
Related forms: Marguerite · Margarita · Margarete · Margareta · Margit · Marged
Pronouncing Margaret
MAR-gruht
Three syllables written, two or three said depending on the speaker; most English speakers compress the middle. French gives four, mar-guh-REET, and Spanish four as well.
Nicknames for Margaret
High
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
- 1881
- Most boys named
- 192488 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #388reached in 1907
- Change vs 2003
- +20.0%6 in 2012, 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.
Margaret in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Marguerite in French — same name
- Margarita in Spanish — same name
- Margarete in German — same name
- Margareta in Swedish — same name
- Margit in Hungarian — related form
- Marged in Welsh — related form
Margarets among us
people named Margaret 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
Margaret 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 has a form in essentially every European language, so it travels anywhere without translation.
- It carries more established short forms than any other English name, in every register from formal to affectionate.
- The meaning is settled, concrete and pleasant, and easy to explain to a child.
- It has an unbroken written history of well over a thousand years.
- Several very famous women share it, and each generation attaches to a different one.
- The short forms are so unlike the name that a child may end up called something a stranger would never connect to it.
- The spelling is recorded for a small number of boys, though it reads overwhelmingly as a girl's name.
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Margaret
Masculine
Frequently asked
- How many Margarets are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,200 people named Margaret are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Margaret in 2025?
- Margaret is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 boy names.
- Will my child share the name Margaret with classmates?
- Margaret will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More M names
The most-given names starting with M, all years combined.
Michael#21 · Matthew#32 · Mark#244 · Mason#39 · Martin#335 · Marvin#699 · Melvin#958 · Marcus#258
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Margaret? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Margaret and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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