Margarite
Feminine · “a pearl”
French puts a u in this name to stop the g going soft. Before an e, a French g is normally said as a zh; the u blocks that and keeps it hard. Take the u out, as this spelling does, and the rule says the name should be mar-zher-EET — which is not what anybody says, so the spelling is quietly broken.
How old is the name Margarite?
Margarite first appears in US birth records in 1888 — 137 years ago. The typical Margarite alive today was born around 1932, making them about 93 years old. About 700 people named Margarite are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Margarite most popular?
Margarite peaked in 1899, reaching #935 nationally. See the whole 1899 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From margarites to Margarite
The story of Margarite
The flower that shares the name has an English one that explains itself. A daisy closes its petals at night and opens them at dawn, and Old English called it the day's eye for exactly that reason — the modern word is that phrase worn down to two syllables. It is one of the very few English flower names that is transparently a description rather than a borrowing, and once it is pointed out it cannot be unseen. The French call the same flower by this name instead, which is why the two words sit together in a great many gardens and dictionaries.
Meaning
a pearl
The Greek word for a pearl, reaching English through Latin and French. The word may have come into Greek from further east and its earlier history is not recoverable, but its sense has been constant for two and a half thousand years.
How the name formed
- margarites
- Marguerite
- Margarite
Related forms: Marguerite · Margherita · Margarita
Pronouncing Margarite
MAR-guh-reet
Three syllables with the stress at the front. The g is hard despite the missing u, which is the one place this spelling and its own rules disagree.
Nicknames for Margarite
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
- 1888
- Most girls named
- 192552 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #935reached in 1899
- Change vs 2004
- −16.7%5 in 2015, 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.
Margarite in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Marguerite in French — same name
- Margherita in Italian — same name
- Margarita in Spanish — same name
Margarites among us
people named Margarite 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
Margarite 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
- Rita and Daisy both stand behind it as short forms with nothing in common.
- The meaning is concrete and has been stable for millennia.
- It is recognized across Europe with small changes of spelling.
- Marguerite and Margarita are both standard and this gets corrected.
- The missing u makes the spelling technically ambiguous about the g.
- The generation that used this form is now very old.
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Margarite
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Margarites are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 700 people named Margarite are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Margarite in 2025?
- Margarite is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Margarite with classmates?
- Margarite 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 Margarite? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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