Name Awesome

Meg

Girls' name

Diminutive of Margaret

Meg has been given to 5,321 babies in the U.S. since 1941. It was used fewer than 5 times in 2025, so it doesn't appear in the latest year's list — today it's a genuinely uncommon pick. Its peak year was 1959, with 196 recorded.

Babies named Meg, 2022

1 in 564,000

Meg over time, 1880–2025

Girls
05010015020018801900192019401960198020002020

Based on births in the U.S. Babies given the name each year. Hover the chart — or focus it and use the arrow keys — for any year. Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Meg: meaning, origin, and history

Diminutive of Margaret

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Meg means

Meg is a diminutive of Margaret.

Documented naming usage and pronunciation

Meg is used in English.

Another recorded pronunciation is /ˈmɛɡ/ for Meg.

Meaning behind the documented name family

The name developed through Meg → Margaret. The family’s meaning is “pearl”, recorded in English with the source elements margarítēs.

Related names and everyday forms

Related names include Margaret and Megan.

Pronunciation and spelling

In English, Meg is pronounced /mɛɡ/.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 5,321 girls were recorded with the name Meg between 1941 and 2022. Its highest annual count was 196 in 1959; its best national rank was #715 in 1959.

Sources & methodologyReferences, data & attribution

Meaning, origin, and language notes draw on the references below.

American popularity figures use published Social Security Administration records for this exact spelling. Counts below five for a name, sex, and year are omitted.

Wiktionary material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

How common is Meg?

Meg had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 2022, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 2022
1 in 564,000
6 of 3,385,755 births
Among girls only
1 in 273,000
<0.01% of girls
Rank, 2022
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
391,139 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Meg sits on the popularity scale

Rarest published (5 a year)#1 — Olivia (13,544)

Chance at least one other child shares the name

If the other children were drawn at random from the 2022 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.

Class of 20Under 1%
Class of 30Under 1%
Grade of 100Under 1%
School of 500Under 1%

Put another way: gather 391,139 children born in 2022 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Meg. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Megs were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Meg was born before 1974 — so the typical Meg is around 51 today.

Median birth year
1974
About 51 years old
Biggest decade
1960s
25.2% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
24.8%
Spread across generations
Recorded since 1950
5,224
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1960s — 25.2% of all recorded uses (1,343).

Is Meg rising or falling?

Rank movement and count movement can disagree — the number of distinct names in use keeps growing, so a name holding a steady count still slides down the list. Both are shown.

Rank vs 1 year ago
—
Not ranked then
Rank vs 5 years ago
New entry
Not ranked then
Rank vs 10 years ago
—
Not ranked then
Births vs 10 years ago
—
Not published both years
Share of its own peak
0%
Peak was 1959 (196)
Years since peak
66
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
32.6% average annual change
Best rank ever
#715
1959

Where Meg is used

Across 1910–2025, Meg was most concentrated in Utah — about 1 in 10,000 girls, against 1 in 53,827 across all states with data. It was least common in Virginia (1 in —).

010 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1Utah1 in 10,000
  2. 2Illinois1 in 33,333
  3. 3Massachusetts1 in 33,333
  4. 4Minnesota1 in 33,333
  5. 5New Jersey1 in 33,333
  6. 6New York1 in 33,333
  7. 7Pennsylvania1 in 33,333
  8. 8California1 in 50,000

Shading is the share of that state's recorded girls given this name, not the raw count — otherwise the map would just show which states are biggest. Unshaded states have no published records for this period. U.S. birth records suppress state-year counts below 5; state counts therefore don't add up to the national total. Every state links to its full rankings. Meg has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Meg around the world

Where Meg ranks in official birth records elsewhere in the world. Rankings only — the number of births isn’t comparable between places, so it isn’t shown.

  • England & Wales
    1996–2021
    #3,961
    in 2021
  • Scotland
    1994–2014
    #802
    in 2014
  • Northern Ireland
    1997–2003
    #331
    in 2003
  • Ireland
    1993–2019
    #871
    in 2019
  • France
    1987–2017
    #5,376
    in 2017
  • Canada
    1991–2014
    #3,202
    in 2014
  • South Australia
    1951–2013
    #403
    in 2013

Popularity data from Office for National Statistics, National Records of Scotland, Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency, Central Statistics Office, Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques, Statistics Canada and Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). ONS, NRS, NISRA data under Open Government Licence v3.0. CSO, CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0. INSEE data under Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0. StatCan data under Statistics Canada Open Licence.

Notable people named Meg

People whose public names include Meg, backed by Wikidata given-name records and ordered by linked Wikimedia pages. The name may be a middle name.

People data from Wikidata (CC0). Fame is measured, not judged — the order reflects how widely each person is documented, not the U.S. birth records popularity this page is otherwise about.

Meg in other languages

Cross-language forms and variants of Meg. Linked forms have their own page here.

Peg

Variant forms from Wikidata (CC0). Most are used mainly outside the United States; U.S. birth records statistics cover US usage only.

Meg by the numbers

The raw record for each sex the name is used for.

As a girl's name

Rank in 2025
Unranked
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
—
Best rank ever
#715
1959
Peak year
1959
196 that year
First recorded
1941
Last recorded
2022
All-time count
5,321
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Meg

Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.

MeghaMegganMeghnaMegumiMeghannMeghanaMegenMeghanMegynMegannMeginMeggieMegaMeganMegginMegonMeghinMegeanMeganneMeghenMeggenMeghamMegahnMegana

Names with a curve like Meg

Not spelling — timing. These names rose, peaked and faded in the same years as Meg, so they read as being from the same moment even when they look nothing alike.

RisaSynthiaLezlieLesliLinetteLizabethRoniDelanaCyndiLissaJolynnJuliann

Sibling names for Meg

Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.

Explore around Meg

Top names of 1959, Meg's peak yearThe 1950s in fullOther names that peaked in 1959Girls' names starting with MDisney Heroine NamesMargaret Variations & Nicknames