Meghan
Feminine · “pearl”
Meghan is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 96,500 girls against 227 boys since 1880.
Meghan is a Welsh pearl with an American h. Megan is the Welsh pet form of Marged, which is Margaret, and the extra letter does nothing but change how the name looks.
How old is the name Meghan?
Meghan first appears in US birth records in 1952 — 73 years ago. The typical Meghan alive today was born around 1990, making them about 35 years old. About 94,500 people named Meghan are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Meghan most popular?
Meghan peaked in 1985, reaching #63 nationally. Today it ranks #1902, 1,839 places below that high. See the whole 1985 chart.
Meghan appears on these lists:
Where it comes from
From margarites to Meghan
The story of Meghan
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 — Meghan, Meagan, Meaghan — and Meghan peaked in the mid-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. The pearl reading is old and undisputed.
How the name formed
- margarites
- Margaret
- Marged
- Megan
- Meghan
Related forms: Megan · Meagan · Meaghan · Marged
Pronouncing Meghan
MEG-un
Two syllables, stress on the first, hard g. All the spellings are said the same way; the h is silent.
Nicknames for Meghan
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
- 1952
- Most girls named
- 19854,669 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #63reached in 1985
- Change vs 2024
- −32.9%102 in 2025, from 152
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.
Meghan in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Megan in Welsh — spelling variant
- Meagan in English — spelling variant
- Meaghan in English — spelling variant
- Marged in Welsh — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: Florida, Texas, California.
Meghans among us
people named Meghan are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 15,758 born in 2025 was named Meghan
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Vivian test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Meghan's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Vivian climbed just as high around 1920, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Vivian's path sketches the road Meghan is walking now.
Meghan is coming down from a big peak (#63 in 1985). This is the stretch of the cycle where a name starts to sound like the decade it ruled.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Meghan is headed
Meghan is easing off slowly — about 25% fewer babies a year by 2030 if the trend continues. Its history is short or jumpy, though, so read this as a sketch rather than a promise.
Low confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Meghan beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Meghan in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
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 the historically correct one.
- The h does no audible work, so the spelling must be given every time.
- It is closely dated to the 1980s and 1990s.
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What they receive
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Meghan
Feminine · #1902 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Meghans are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 94,500 people named Meghan are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Meghan in 2025?
- Meghan ranks #1902 among US girl names in 2025, with 102 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Meghan?
- About 1 in every 15,758 US girls born in 2025 was named Meghan — 102 in all.
- Will my child share the name Meghan with classmates?
- Meghan will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Meghan
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Kinzley#1902 · Riverlynn#1902 · Zya#1902 · Halima#1902 · Kolbie#1902 · Pepper#1902 · Violett#1902 · Izzy#1902
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Meghan? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Meghan and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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