Ragan
Feminine · “descendant of the little king”
Ragan is given to both — 1,866 girls and 394 boys since 1880. See other names given to both
Reagan is an Irish surname about a small king, or possibly about impulse — the Irish is Ó Riagáin, and the element inside it has never been settled. Ragan is the plainest spelling of it in American records: no e, no double letter, nothing but the sound. It crossed to girls in the 1990s and has stayed there.
How old is the name Ragan?
Ragan first appears in US birth records in 1963 — 62 years ago. The typical Ragan alive today was born around 1998, making them about 27 years old. About 1,800 people named Ragan are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Ragan most popular?
Ragan peaked in 1998, reaching #1940 nationally. Today it ranks #13208, 11,268 places below that high. See the whole 1998 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Ó Riagáin to Ragan
The story of Ragan
The Ó Riagáin families were of Leinster and Meath, and the surname reached America in large numbers with Irish emigration. It became widely known here through a presidency in the 1980s, but the name's crossing to first-name use for girls came a little later and appears to owe more to the general American appetite for Irish surnames than to any one bearer. Ragan is the version with the fewest letters, and its record shows it rising through the 1990s and given overwhelmingly to daughters.
Meaningscholars disagree
descendant of the little king
The Irish Ó Riagáin is built on a personal name usually connected to rí, a king, with a diminutive ending — giving little king. A competing reading connects it instead to a word for impulse or fury. Neither is demonstrated, and Irish surname elements of this age frequently cannot be recovered.
How the name formed
- Ó Riagáin
- Reagan
- Ragan
Related forms: Ó Riagáin
Pronouncing Ragan
RAY-gun
Two syllables, stress on the first. Reagan is said the same way in America, though the Irish original is closer to ree-GAWN and the British press said the presidential surname with a short first vowel for years before giving up.
Nicknames for Ragan
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
- 1963
- Most girls named
- 199878 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1940reached in 1998
- Change vs 2024
- −14.3%6 in 2025, 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.
Ragan in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Ó Riagáin in Irish — same name
Ragans among us
people named Ragan are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 267,878 born in 2025 was named Ragan
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 Manya test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Ragan's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Manya climbed just as high around 1955, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Manya's path sketches the road Ragan is walking now.
Ragan sits in the calm middle of the cycle — neither chasing a wave nor sliding off one. Middle-of-the-cycle names age slowly and predictably.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Ragan beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Ragan in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- It is the leanest spelling of a sound that usually takes six or seven letters.
- Rae is available as a short form and is entirely current.
- It works for a child of either sex in the record, though nearly all are girls.
- The Irish surname behind it is genuine and old.
- Reagan is the standard spelling and carries a strong political association in America.
- Ragan, Raegan and Reagan all compete, so the spelling has to be dictated.
- Its meaning cannot be given cleanly, since the Irish element is unsettled.
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What they receive
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Ragan
Feminine · #13208 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Ragans are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,800 people named Ragan are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Ragan in 2025?
- Ragan ranks #13208 among US girl names in 2025, with 6 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Ragan?
- About 1 in every 267,878 US girls born in 2025 was named Ragan — 6 in all.
- Will my child share the name Ragan with classmates?
- Ragan will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Ragan
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
John#13208 · Vinnie#13208 · Margery#13208 · Jossie#13208 · Tressa#13208 · Erie#13208 · Bernadine#13208 · Euna#13208
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Ragan? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Ragan and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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