Margaret

549,715 people in America carry this name — ranked #76 of 923.

A name with a settled sense and a settled sound.

Say it MAHR gur iht

3 syllables · the capitals are the stressed part

Phonetic transcription

M AA1 R G ER0 IH0 T — ARPAbet, as published in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. The digit on a vowel marks its stress.

  • People counted 549,715 2020 Census
  • Rank #76 Very common
  • As a surname 509 ranked #45,303 the other way round

What Margaret means and where it comes from

Greek in origin, reading literally as “pearl”.

Origins are a matter of scholarly argument rather than record, and a name can be traced more than one way. We state one reading and say where it came from.

How often Margaret has been given

1,257,168 babies were given this name since 1880. The busiest year was 1921, with 28,521 of them.

80 90 00 10 20s 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 00 10 20

Most people carrying it were born in the 1920s. It has been given less often of late.

Counted from Social Security card applications, so it covers births registered in the United States and leaves out names given to fewer than five babies in a year.

Middle names that fit Margaret

Three syllables already, so a short middle name keeps the whole from running long.

Better avoided

  • Margaret Mary — same opening
  • Margaret Michelle — same opening
  • Margaret Martha — same opening

Chosen by sound from the pronouncing dictionary, then ordered by how often the name is given. None of it is a rule — the ear decides.

Nicknames for Margaret

Short forms as recorded in a 19th-century glossary of Christian names, so the list is old rather than complete.

A name from before the war

The year most children were called Margaret was 1921. Names of that age tend to come back once their owners are grandparents.

Is Margaret used for boys or for girls?

0.1% men
549,159 women

As recorded on census returns, not as anyone thinks the name ought to be used.

The states where Margaret is most common

In the District of Columbia the name is given 2.3 times as often as it is across the country.

  • the District of Columbia ×2.3
  • Vermont ×1.8
  • Connecticut ×1.7
  • Massachusetts ×1.6
  • Delaware ×1.6

Measured against the state's own share of births since 1960, so a small state can lead a big one. Counted from Social Security card applications.

The most common full names

The census counts first names and surnames separately and never together, so these are estimates: how often the two halves would meet if they paired at random. They do not — names cluster by community — so read them as an order of magnitude, not a headcount.

The same name elsewhere

  • Meg English
  • May Scottish
  • Mai Esth
  • Mag English
  • Rita Italian
  • Reta Finn
  • Mete German
  • Kret Esth
  • Grel Bav
  • Gogo French
  • Peggy English
  • Mysic Scottish
  • Moggy English
  • Mette Danish

Forms of one name traced to the same root. Spellings are as the glossary printed them, so some look older than the versions in use today.

Who answers to it now

  • White alone (non-Hispanic) — 86.0%
  • Black or African American alone (non-Hispanic) — 6.4%
  • Hispanic or Latino origin — 4.0%
  • Two or more races — 1.7%
  • Asian and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone — 1.4%

Categories are how people answered the census — a fact about the bearers, not a property of the name. Conclusions are ours, not the Census Bureau’s.

Try it Birth Plan Worksheet

Tick what matters, print it, hand it over. Nothing is stored anywhere.

Open Birth Plan Worksheet on its own page

Where this page gets its numbers

  • Counts, ranks and shares: U.S. Census Bureau, 2020 Census tabulations of first and last names occurring 100 or more times. Percentages, bands and groupings are our own arithmetic — the conclusions are ours, not the Bureau’s.
  • Pronunciation, syllables and rhyme groups: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, Carnegie Mellon University. The plain-English respelling is ours.
  • Origins and the forms a name takes in other languages: Charlotte Yonge, History of Christian Names, 1884 — a public-domain work. Scholarship has moved on since, so read it as one reading of a name, not the last word.

Below a hundred people we publish no figure at all — the same threshold the Census Bureau applies to us. What each source covers
Other names of Greek origin