Margret

About Margret

Margret is a contracted form of Margaret or German Margarete, carrying the older name's meaning, “pearl.” Its compressed spelling has a particularly memorable literary bearer: Margret Rey, co-creator of Curious George. Through her, this compact member of the Margaret family is connected with picture books, artistic collaboration, and a remarkable wartime escape.

Meaning and name family

Margaret came through French and Latin from Greek margarites, meaning “pearl.” Margret removes the unstressed vowel written between the g and r in Margaret. English Margaret itself is often spoken in two syllables, so the shorter spelling can closely match its everyday sound.

German Margarete is another immediate source for Margret. The wider family includes Greta, Gretchen, Marguerite, and Margarita, along with English familiar forms such as Maggie and Meg. These are historical relatives with different shapes, rather than unrelated names that merely begin with Mar.

Margret also differs from Margrét, the accented Icelandic form. The unaccented spelling has its own documented German and English use. It preserves the recognizable marg- and -ret portions of the older name while making the written form noticeably shorter.

Margret Rey and Curious George

Margret Rey was born Margarete Elisabeth Waldstein in Hamburg in 1906. She studied art and worked in advertising before leaving Germany for Brazil in 1935. There she married Hans Reyersbach, later known as H. A. Rey; the couple moved to Paris the following year.

Their early children's-book work included the story published in English as Cecily G. and the Nine Monkeys. One small monkey in that larger cast became the basis of Curious George. The character's adventures were developing when the German invasion of France forced the Reys to leave Paris in June 1940.

They escaped on bicycles with manuscripts among the few possessions they could carry. Their route eventually took them through Spain and Portugal, then Brazil, before they arrived in New York in October 1940. Curious George found a publisher at Houghton Mifflin and appeared in 1941.

The familiar title page initially concealed part of the partnership. H. A. drew the pictures, while Margret worked especially on the stories, with both contributing to the books' development. Her name was omitted from early covers and later received fuller recognition. Together they created seven original Curious George stories.

A wider picture-book legacy

Margret's work was not confined to George. Pretzel follows a dachshund, while Elizabite tells the adventures of a carnivorous plant. Another project, Whiteblack the Penguin Sees the World, was developed around the time of the first George book but reached readers much later.

After her husband's death in 1977, Margret continued overseeing George's growing presence in books and other media. She also established the Curious George Foundation to support causes involving children and animals. She died in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1996.

American usage

Margret reached its largest published annual female count in the United States in 1921, with 214 births and a ranking of #472. In 2025, 21 girls received the exact spelling, at #5,842. Its strongest American statistical period therefore preceded the first Curious George book by two decades.

How popular is Margret?

In 2025, Margret ranked #5,842 among girls in the United States, with 21 recorded uses. The U.S. birth records first list this spelling for girls in 1880; its largest annual count was 214 in 1921. Rankings count each spelling separately. They describe national use, so local familiarity can differ. The popularity chart shows whether the name has remained common, returned after a quieter period, or risen recently.