Peggi
Feminine · “pearl”
Peggi is a nickname written as a full name, with the ending that mid-century American women's names favored. The nickname itself is among the strangest in English: it reaches its formal name by a route that follows no rule at all, and the word it sits on has furnished the language with a surprising amount of furniture.
How old is the name Peggi?
Peggi first appears in US birth records in 1937 — 88 years ago. The typical Peggi alive today was born around 1957, making them about 68 years old. About 600 people named Peggi are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Peggi most popular?
Peggi peaked in 1958, reaching #1527 nationally. See the whole 1958 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From margarites to Peggi
The story of Peggi
The word peg has done a lot of quiet work in English, and one place it ended up is a card game. Cribbage is the only common card game with a board, and the board exists because the scoring is too fast and too fiddly to hold in the head: players advance pegs along a track of holes, and the phrase to peg out — meaning to finish, and later to die — comes from the last peg reaching the last hole. The game is generally credited to Sir John Suckling, a Cavalier poet of the sixteen-thirties better known for a handful of lyrics and for a spectacularly expensive taste in card play. A century later the shorter form of this name belonged to one of the most famous actresses in London: Peg Woffington, who came up from a Dublin street childhood and made her reputation in breeches roles, playing men, at a time when this was both a scandal and a guaranteed full house.
Meaning
pearl
The formal name behind it is Margaret, from Greek margarites, a pearl. The familiar form reached that name by a change English applied to a handful of nicknames and then abandoned, which is why the two look unrelated.
How the name formed
- margarites
- Margaret
- Meg
- Peg
- Peggi
Related forms: Peigi
Pronouncing Peggi
PEG-ee
Two syllables, stress at the front. The final i is a long e, as in Toni and Terri, and not the long i of hi.
Nicknames for Peggi
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
- 1937
- Most girls named
- 195849 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1527reached in 1958
- Change vs 1974
- 0.0%5 in 1985, from 5
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.
Peggi in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Peigi in Scottish — related form
Peggis among us
people named Peggi 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
Peggi 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 short, warm and instantly understood.
- The formal name Margaret is available behind it for any occasion that wants one.
- The spelling is compact and fits any form without abbreviation.
- Peggy is overwhelmingly the commoner spelling and will be written by default.
- The final i dates the spelling precisely to the middle of the last century.
- It reads as a nickname, which some bearers like and others find limiting at work.
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Peggi
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Peggis 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 Peggi are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Peggi in 2025?
- Peggi is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Peggi with classmates?
- Peggi 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 Peggi? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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