Tegan
Masculine · “fair one”
Tegan is given to both — 2,574 boys and 6,789 girls since 1880. See Tegan as a girl nameSee other names given to both
Tegan is Welsh, and in Welsh it is built from teg — fair, lovely — with the small affectionate ending the language uses for something dear. Its American career has been more tangled than that, because it arrived alongside the Irish Teagan, and the two have been trading places ever since.
How old is the name Tegan?
Tegan first appears in US birth records in 1984 — 41 years ago. The typical Tegan alive today was born around 2010, making them about 15 years old. About 2,500 people named Tegan are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Tegan most popular?
Tegan peaked in 2007, reaching #971 nationally. Today it ranks #2718, 1,747 places below that high. See the whole 2007 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Tadhg to Tegan
The story of Tegan
The Welsh road is the older one: teg is an everyday Welsh adjective, and Tegan is what the language does with an adjective it wants to make small and affectionate. The Irish road runs through Tadhg, a name carried by kings and poets long before surnames existed, which became Ó Tadhgáin and then the anglicized Teagan. Both landed in the United States within the same span of years, and American parents have used the two spellings for each other freely — which is why a boy called Tegan is usually standing on the Irish side of a Welsh word.
Meaningscholars disagree
fair one, little darling — or descendant of Tadhg
Two different names sit under these spellings. Welsh Tegan is teg, 'fair, beautiful', with a diminutive ending; in Welsh it belongs to women, and the word also means a trinket or a darling. Irish Teagan comes from the surname Ó Tadhgáin, from Tadhg, a very old Irish man's name usually read as 'poet'. American use has treated the spellings as interchangeable, so which name a particular Tegan carries is a family matter rather than a linguistic one.
How the name formed
- Tadhg
- Ó Tadhgáin
- Teagan
- Tegan
Related forms: Tegan · Tadhg · Teagan
Pronouncing Tegan
TEE-gan or TEG-an
Welsh says TEG-an with a short e, because that is how teg sounds in Welsh. American English usually says TEE-gan. Both have real backing, and the family decides which one a child answers to.
Nicknames for Tegan
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
- 1984
- Most boys named
- 2007202 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #971reached in 2007
- Change vs 2024
- −14.5%47 in 2025, from 55
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.
Tegan in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Tegan in Welsh — related form
- Tadhg in Irish — related form
- Teagan in Irish — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, Ohio, Pennsylvania.
Tegans among us
people named Tegan are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 36,342 born in 2025 was named Tegan
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Tegan
- #2718
- Tegan on the 2025 chart
- #850
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Tegan went to 47 boys in 2025, but Teegan is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 78, which makes it the 850th most-given boys’ name of the year — 1,868 places above the chart.
- Tegan47
- Teegan31
About 1 boy in 21,898 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 36,342 for Tegan 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 Tyrus test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Tegan's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Tyrus climbed just as high around 1912, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Tyrus's path sketches the road Tegan is walking now.
Tegan 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
Where Tegan is headed
Tegan should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
Medium 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.
Tegan beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Tegan in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Short, easy to spell once heard, and comfortable in both English and Welsh mouths.
- Genuine roots in two living traditions rather than a recent invention.
- Used for boys and girls alike, so it locks a child into nobody's expectations.
- Tegan and Teagan are both common, and the spelling will be asked for often.
- The two pronunciations both have real backing, so somebody will say it wrongly every year.
- In the United States it goes to girls more often than boys, which is worth knowing before choosing it for a son.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Tegan
Masculine · #2718 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Tegans are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 2,500 people named Tegan are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Tegan?
- Tegan is the most-used spelling in US records — 47 of the 78 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Teegan.
- How popular is the name Tegan in 2025?
- Tegan ranks #2718 among US boy names in 2025, with 47 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Tegan?
- About 1 in every 36,342 US boys born in 2025 was named Tegan — 47 in all.
- Will my child share the name Tegan with classmates?
- Tegan will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Tegan
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Einar#2718 · Kurtis#2718 · Sasha#2718 · Jovany#2718 · Ahsan#2718 · Xavien#2718 · Yassin#2718 · Unknown#2718
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Tegan? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Tegan and another name?
See them side by side — full stats, history and a gentle verdict.
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Cast your vote
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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