Peg
Feminine · “A pearl”
Peg is three letters and about as short as an English name gets, and it reached that length by two separate steps — one of them a clipping and the other a rhyme.
How old is the name Peg?
Peg first appears in US birth records in 1913 — 112 years ago. The typical Peg alive today was born around 1950, making them about 75 years old. About 600 people named Peg are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Peg most popular?
Peg peaked in 1946, reaching #1559 nationally. See the whole 1946 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Margaret to Peg
The story of Peg
Changing the opening consonant of a nickname is an English speciality with no good explanation. Margaret to Meg to Peg; Robert to Rob to Bob; William to Will to Bill; Richard to Rick to Dick; Edward to Ned; Mary to Molly to Polly. Every one of those second steps replaces a consonant with an unrelated one, and the pattern is strongest in the medieval and early modern period, which suggests something about how children learned names in large households. Whatever the cause, it produced a set of English nicknames that cannot be connected to their parent names by any rule — you simply have to know.
Meaning
A pearl
The name descends from Margaret, whose Greek original means a pearl. The route is unusual: Margaret gives Meg by clipping, and Meg gives Peg by changing the first consonant, which is a step almost no other language takes.
How the name formed
- Margaret
- Meg
- Peg
Pronouncing Peg
PEG
One syllable. Identical to the ordinary English word.
Nicknames for Peg
Limited
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
- 1913
- Most girls named
- 195743 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1559reached in 1946
- Change vs 1967
- −28.6%5 in 1968, from 7
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.
Pegs among us
people named Peg 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
Peg 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 is as short as a name gets and impossible to mispronounce.
- The formal name behind it is one of the great European ones.
- It is warm and unpretentious at any age.
- It is an ordinary English noun, which some bearers mind.
- It reads as a nickname, so the long form will be assumed.
- The connection to Margaret is invisible to anyone who does not already know it.
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Peg
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Pegs are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 600 people named Peg are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Peg in 2025?
- Peg is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Peg with classmates?
- Peg will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More P names
The most-given names starting with P, all years combined.
Patricia#1334 · Pamela#2239 · Phyllis#11932 · Peggy#8362 · Paula#853 · Pauline#2957 · Pearl#776 · Paige#346
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Peg? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Peg and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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