Raigan
Feminine · “little king”
Raigan settles an argument the standard spelling leaves open. Reagan can be said RAY-gan or REE-gan and both are in use, which is a real inconvenience for a name; the ai here fixes it as the first. Under both is an Irish family name built on a word for a king, and a Shakespearean association that nobody chooses on purpose.
How old is the name Raigan?
Raigan first appears in US birth records in 1990 — 35 years ago. The typical Raigan alive today was born around 2009, making them about 16 years old. About 900 people named Raigan are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Raigan most popular?
Raigan peaked in 2003, reaching #3291 nationally. Today it ranks #14942, 11,651 places below that high. See the whole 2003 chart.
Where it comes from
From Ó Riagáin to Raigan
The story of Raigan
The surname was well known in Ireland long before it was known anywhere else, and it reached wide American visibility in the twentieth century through public life. It began appearing as a girl's first name in the nineteen-nineties and spread quickly, taking its spellings with it. The unrelated complication is Shakespeare: King Lear has a daughter named Regan, and she is one of the two who betray him. That name is spelled and said differently enough to be a separate thing, but the resemblance is close, and anyone who has read the play will hear it.
Meaningscholars disagree
little king
The Irish surname O Riagain descends from a personal name generally read against ri, the word for a king, with a diminutive ending — so something like little king or the king's descendant. The reading is traditional and not fully demonstrated, which is the usual situation with Irish personal names of that age. A surname in any case records descent rather than description, so the royal reading applies to an ancestor at best.
How the name formed
- Ó Riagáin
- Reagan
- Raigan
Related forms: Ó Riagáin
Pronouncing Raigan
RAY-gun
RAY-gun, two syllables, stress at the front, the ai fixed as a long a. That is the whole point of this spelling: Reagan can be read two ways and this one cannot, which is a genuine improvement rather than a decorative change.
Nicknames for Raigan
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
- 1990
- Most girls named
- 200746 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #3291reached in 2003
- Change vs 2024
- −28.6%5 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.
Raigan in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Ó Riagáin in Irish — related form
Raigans among us
people named Raigan are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 321,453 born in 2025 was named Raigan
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Raigan
- #14942
- Raigan on the 2025 chart
- #947
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Raigan went to 5 girls in 2025, but Raygan is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 13, which makes it the 947th most-given girls’ name of the year — 13,995 places above the chart.
- Raygan8
- Raigan5
About 1 girl in 123,636 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 321,453 for Raigan itself.
Spellings are grouped by a fixed rule that folds interchangeable English spellings of one sound (ck/k, ph/f, x/ks, a non-initial y for i) and keeps vowels apart, so Sean and Shawn stay separate names. It errs towards splitting: a family here is never larger than the truth. SSA national data, 2025. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Tinia test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Raigan's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Tinia climbed just as high around 1962, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Tinia's path sketches the road Raigan is walking now.
Raigan 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
Raigan beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Raigan in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- The ai removes a real ambiguity that the standard spelling has never resolved.
- It has a documented Irish family name behind it rather than an invented one.
- It works for either child, as surname-derived names generally do.
- Reagan is the standard spelling by a wide margin, and this one will be rewritten as that constantly.
- The surname is strongly associated with one American president, and that association is unavoidable.
- Regan in King Lear is one of the two daughters who turn on their father, and readers of the play will make the connection.
Nobody names a baby alone.
Put Raigan to the vote.
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What they receive
Someone added a name to your list
Raigan
Feminine · #14942 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Raigans are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 900 people named Raigan are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Raigan?
- Raigan is one of 2 recorded spellings. Raygan is the more common one — 8 births in 2025 against 5 for Raigan.
- How popular is the name Raigan in 2025?
- Raigan ranks #14942 among US girl names in 2025, with 5 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Raigan?
- About 1 in every 321,453 US girls born in 2025 was named Raigan — 5 in all.
- Will my child share the name Raigan with classmates?
- Raigan will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Raigan
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Hester#14942 · Lyda#14942 · Zula#14942 · Zona#14942 · Ula#14942 · Belva#14942 · Lucetta#14942 · Wilhemina#14942
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Raigan? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Raigan and another name?
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Which one would you pick?
Your gut first, the numbers after — the split shows once you pick.
US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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