Name Awesome

Reg

Boys' name

Decision, advice, counsel + ruler, through Reginald

Reg has been given to 209 babies in the U.S. since 1936. 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 1958, with 16 recorded.

Babies named Reg, 1979

1 in 665,000

Reg over time, 1880–2025

Boys
0510152018801900192019401960198020002020

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Reg: meaning, origin, and history

Decision, advice, counsel + ruler, through Reginald

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Reg means

Reg belongs to the name family reached through Reg → Reginald → *Raginawaldaz. Its meaning is “decision, advice, counsel + ruler”.

Origin, language, and formation

Reg is used in English.

Related names and everyday forms

Related names include Reginald and *Raginawaldaz.

Pronunciation and spelling

In English, Reg is pronounced /ɹɛd͡ʒ/.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 209 boys were recorded with the name Reg between 1936 and 1979. Its highest annual count was 16 in 1958; its best national rank was #2,077 in 1958.

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 Reg?

Reg had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 1979, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 1979
1 in 665,000
5 of 3,326,731 births
Among boys only
1 in 344,000
<0.01% of boys
Rank, 1979
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
461,184 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Reg sits on the popularity scale

Rarest published (5 a year)#1 — Liam (20,818)

Chance at least one other child shares the name

If the other children were drawn at random from the 1979 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 461,184 children born in 1979 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Reg. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Regs were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Reg was born before 1953 — so the typical Reg is around 72 today.

Median birth year
1953
About 72 years old
Biggest decade
1940s
34.9% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
49.8%
Spread across generations
Recorded since 1950
120
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1940s — 34.9% of all recorded uses (73).

Is Reg 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 1958 (16)
Years since peak
67
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
26.8% average annual change
Best rank ever
#2,077
1958

Where Reg is used

Across 1910–2025, Reg was most concentrated in California — about 1 in — boys, against 1 in 3,486,540 across all states with data.

00 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1California1 in —

Shading is the share of that state's recorded boys 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. Reg has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Reg around the world

Where Reg 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
    2006–2025
    #4,275
    in 2025
  • South Australia
    1944–2013
    #754
    in 2013

Popularity data from Office for National Statistics and Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). ONS data under Open Government Licence v3.0. CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0.

Reg by the numbers

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

As a boy's name

Rank in 2025
Unranked
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
—
Best rank ever
#2,077
1958
Peak year
1958
16 that year
First recorded
1936
Last recorded
1979
All-time count
209
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Reg

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

AregCregTregReginoRegieRegalReggyNaregReganReginaRegiRegisKregReginaldoRegionRegulusRegnaldRegeReginoldRegoryReguloRegginaldRegenReggie

Sibling names for Reg

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 Reg

Top names of 1958, Reg's peak yearThe 1950s in fullOther names that peaked in 1958Boys' names starting with R