Maggie
A feminine diminutive of Margaret, meaning "pearl" from Greek.
Name Census estimates that about 63,985 living Americans carry the first name Maggie. It sits at #300 in the overall ranking, outside the top 50 but still well-represented. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Maggie today is around 30 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Maggie births was 2007 (1,874 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Maggie. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
For a British comparison, Name Census UK has a UK baby-name profile for Maggie with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Although Maggie is used almost entirely for girls, the SSA data does show 282 boys registered with the name since 1880.
People living today
64K
~ 1 in 5,357 Americans
Peak year
2007
1,874 babies that year
Average age
30
years old
2006 SSA rank
#300
Tracked since 1880
Census
Maggie in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 72,615 people with the first name Maggie, which placed it at #705 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#705
National first-name rank
People counted
73K
72,615 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
24.0
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
72.6% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Maggie
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Maggie is White at 72.6%. The next largest groups are Black (9.1%) and Hispanic (8.1%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Maggie described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Maggie at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White72.6% · 52,710
- Black or African American9.1% · 6,574
- Hispanic or Latino8.1% · 5,893
- Asian and Pacific Islander6.7% · 4,832
- Two or more races2.7% · 1,974
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.9% · 632
Gender
Gender distribution for Maggie
Out of the 122,305 babies given the name Maggie since 1880, 99.8% were registered as female. The name sits firmly on the female side of the spectrum, with only a handful of male registrations across the entire dataset.
Maggie as a male name
- Ranked #13,260 in 2006
- 5 male births in 2006
- Peak: 1918 (12 births)
Maggie as a female name
- Ranked #300 in 2024
- 1,051 female births in 2024
- Peak: 2007 (1,874 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Maggie appears almost entirely female. Of the 72,613 people counted with this name, 99.8% were female and only a very small share were male.
Popularity
Maggie: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Maggie from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 15 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2000s, with 16,919 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2000s peak, Maggie remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Maggie by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Maggie during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Maggies live
The SSA's state-level files cover 51 states and territories. North Carolina, Texas, Georgia recorded the most babies named Maggie, while Hawaii, Vermont, Delaware recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 1,858 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Maggie
The name Maggie is a diminutive form of the name Margaret, which is derived from the Ancient Greek name Margarites, meaning "pearl". Margaret was a popular name among early Christians, who saw the pearl as a symbol of purity and the soul's journey to heaven.
The name Margaret gained widespread use across Europe during the Middle Ages, and many variations emerged, including Margery, Meg, Madge, and Maggie. Maggie became particularly common in Scotland and Ireland, where it was seen as a more informal and affectionate version of the name.
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Maggie can be found in the works of the 14th-century Scottish poet John Barbour, who referred to a character named "Maggy the Wych" in his epic poem, The Brus.
Throughout history, several notable individuals have borne the name Maggie. One of the most famous was Margaret of Anjou (1430-1482), the wife of King Henry VI of England, who played a pivotal role in the Wars of the Roses. Another notable figure was Maggie Blanck (1837-1923), an American businesswoman who co-founded the Blanck's Revue, one of the earliest vaudeville theaters in New York City.
In literature, the name Maggie features prominently in George Eliot's novel The Mill on the Floss (1860), where the protagonist, Maggie Tulliver, is a passionate and unconventional young woman who struggles against societal expectations.
Other notable figures named Maggie include Maggie Smith (born 1934), the acclaimed British actress known for her roles in films such as the Harry Potter series and Downton Abbey, and Maggie Kuhn (1905-1995), an American activist who founded the Gray Panthers, an influential advocacy group for the elderly.
Maggie has endured as a popular name throughout the centuries, with its informal and affectionate connotations making it a beloved choice for parents seeking a diminutive form of the more formal Margaret.
Notable bearers
Famous people named Maggie
People
Maggie + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Maggie as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with M
Other first names starting with M with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Maggie: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Maggie?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 63,985 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Maggie going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 5,357 US residents.
Is Maggie a common name?
We classify Maggie as "Uncommon". It ranks above 99.3% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 122,305 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Maggie most popular?
The single biggest year for Maggie was 2007, when 1,874 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Maggie is about 30 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Maggie in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 72,615 people with the name Maggie, or 24.04 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #705 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Maggie in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Maggie?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Maggie appears almost entirely female. Of the 72,613 people counted with this name, 99.8% were female and only a very small share were male. The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Maggie?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Maggie is White at 72.6%. The next largest groups are Black (9.1%) and Hispanic (8.1%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Maggie most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Maggie in the 2020 Census, accounting for 72.6% (52,710 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Maggie in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Maggie a female name?
Yes, 99.8% of people registered as Maggie in the SSA data are female. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Is Maggie still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Maggie in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Maggie can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.
How many people are called Maggie?
For a quick modern estimate, our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers that in one glance, with the living-bearer count front and centre.