Meaghan
Feminine · “pearl”
Meaghan is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 14,036 girls against 7 boys since 1880.
Meaghan is one of half a dozen spellings of Megan, and Megan is Welsh — a diminutive of Margaret, which is Greek for pearl and reached Greek from Persia.
How old is the name Meaghan?
Meaghan first appears in US birth records in 1955 — 70 years ago. The typical Meaghan alive today was born around 1990, making them about 35 years old. About 13,500 people named Meaghan are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Meaghan most popular?
Meaghan peaked in 1986, reaching #325 nationally. See the whole 1986 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From margarites to Meaghan
The story of Meaghan
Margaret was one of the great medieval names, and Wales made Marged and its diminutive Megan, which became distinctively Welsh. It spread across the English-speaking world in the twentieth century and produced a large family of respellings — Meghan, Meaghan, Meagan, Megann. Meaghan appears in American records from the 1970s and peaked in the mid-1980s.
Meaning
pearl
Through Megan and Margaret, from the Greek margarites, 'pearl'. The Greek is itself a borrowing, probably from an Old Persian word, and ultimately perhaps from Sanskrit. Megan is the Welsh diminutive, formed from Marged. The meaning is undisputed.
How the name formed
- margarites
- Margaret
- Megan
- Meaghan
Related forms: Megan · Meghan · Meagan
Pronouncing Meaghan
MEG-un
Two syllables, stress on the first. All the spellings are said identically; the gh and ea are silent decoration.
Nicknames for Meaghan
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
- 1955
- Most girls named
- 1986744 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #325reached in 1986
- Change vs 2019
- +30.0%13 in 2020, 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.
Meaghan in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Megan in Welsh — spelling variant
- Meghan in English — spelling variant
- Meagan in English — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: Florida.
Meaghans among us
people named Meaghan 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
Meaghan 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
- The pearl meaning is concrete and its route from Persia to Greek is genuinely interesting.
- Meg is a short, warm, thoroughly established form.
- Margaret stands behind it as a formal option with enormous history.
- At least four spellings of the sound are in common use.
- It will be respelled by other people constantly.
- It is closely dated to the 1980s in this spelling.
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Meaghan
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Meaghans are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 13,500 people named Meaghan are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Meaghan in 2025?
- Meaghan is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Meaghan with classmates?
- Meaghan 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 Meaghan? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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