Name Awesome

Peg

Girls' name

Pearl, through Margaret

Peg has been given to 841 babies in the U.S. since 1913. 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 1957, with 43 recorded.

Babies named Peg, 1968

1 in 676,000

Peg over time, 1880–2025

Girls
020406018801900192019401960198020002020

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Peg: meaning, origin, and history

Pearl, through Margaret

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Peg means

Peg belongs to the name family reached through Peg → Margaret. Its meaning is “pearl”.

Origin, language, and formation

Peg is used in English and Yola.

Related names and everyday forms

Related names include Margaret, Peggy and Margraate.

Pronunciation and spelling

In English, Peg is pronounced /pɛɡ/.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 841 girls were recorded with the name Peg between 1913 and 1968. Its highest annual count was 43 in 1957; its best national rank was #1,578 in 1946.

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 Peg?

Peg had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 1968, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 1968
1 in 676,000
5 of 3,378,301 births
Among girls only
1 in 328,000
<0.01% of girls
Rank, 1968
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
468,333 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Peg 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 1968 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 468,333 children born in 1968 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Peg. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Pegs were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Peg was born before 1950 — so the typical Peg is around 75 today.

Median birth year
1950
About 75 years old
Biggest decade
1950s
36.0% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
71.0%
A modern name
Recorded since 1950
440
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1950s — 36.0% of all recorded uses (303).

Is Peg 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 1957 (43)
Years since peak
68
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
27.6% average annual change
Best rank ever
#1,578
1946

Where Peg is used

Across 1910–2025, Peg was most concentrated in Ohio — about 1 in 100,000 girls, against 1 in 359,177 across all states with data. It was least common in Pennsylvania (1 in —).

01 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1Ohio1 in 100,000
  2. 2California1 in —
  3. 3Iowa1 in —
  4. 4Illinois1 in —
  5. 5Michigan1 in —
  6. 6Nebraska1 in —
  7. 7Pennsylvania1 in —

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. Peg has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Peg 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
#1,578
1946
Peak year
1957
43 that year
First recorded
1913
Last recorded
1968
All-time count
841
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Peg

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

PeggiPegiPeggePeggyePegeenPegahPeggiePeggyannPeganPeggyPeggysuePeggyjoPeggyannePeggylee

Sibling names for Peg

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 Peg

Top names of 1957, Peg's peak yearThe 1950s in fullOther names that peaked in 1946Girls' names starting with PMargaret Variations & Nicknames