Meagan
Feminine · “pearl”
Meagan is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 41,547 girls against 72 boys since 1880.
Meagan is a Welsh pearl with an American spelling. Megan is the Welsh pet form of Marged, which is Margaret — and the extra a in this version does nothing at all except change how the name looks.
How old is the name Meagan?
Meagan first appears in US birth records in 1954 — 71 years ago. The typical Meagan alive today was born around 1991, making them about 34 years old. About 40,500 people named Meagan are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Meagan most popular?
Meagan peaked in 1989, reaching #120 nationally. See the whole 1989 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From margarites to Meagan
The story of Meagan
Margaret was as common in Wales as everywhere else in Britain, and Welsh produced its own short forms: Mared, Marged, Megan. Megan stayed largely Welsh until the twentieth century, then spread through the English-speaking world and rose very sharply in America from the 1970s. The respellings followed — Meagan, Meghan, Meaghan — each adding letters the sound does not require, and Meagan peaked at the end of the 1980s.
Meaning
pearl
From the Greek margarites, 'pearl', through Margaret and its Welsh form Marged. Welsh forms pet names by clipping and adding -an, giving Megan from Marged exactly as it gives Sioned from Siân.
How the name formed
- margarites
- Margaret
- Marged
- Megan
- Meagan
Related forms: Megan · Meghan · Meaghan · Marged
Pronouncing Meagan
MEG-un
Two syllables, stress on the first, hard g. All the spellings are said the same way; the extra letters are silent.
Nicknames for Meagan
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
- 1954
- Most girls named
- 19892,464 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #120reached in 1989
- Change vs 2023
- −8.3%11 in 2024, from 12
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.
Meagan in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Megan in Welsh — spelling variant
- Meghan in English — spelling variant
- Meaghan in English — spelling variant
- Marged in Welsh — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, California, Florida.
Meagans among us
people named Meagan 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
Meagan has already lived its whole cycle: it rose, had its era, and has stepped off the charts. The fashion question is behind it — what lies ahead is the waiting room where revivals begin, once a name's first generation has grown distant enough for it to sound fresh again.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- Margaret stands behind it as a formal form with a thousand years of use.
- The pearl meaning is transparent and undisputed.
- Meg is available as a short form with its own long record.
- At least four spellings are in use and Megan is much the commonest.
- The extra a does no audible work, so the spelling must be given every time.
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Meagan
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Meagans are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 40,500 people named Meagan are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Meagan in 2025?
- Meagan is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Meagan with classmates?
- Meagan 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 Meagan? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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