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Meabh vs Meadow

American parents have registered 12,355 Meadows since 1880, against 74 Meabhs. Meadow is still ahead, with 1,078 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Meabh against Meadow, 1880 to 2025 0 300 600 900 1.2k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Meabh Meadow

Each line is every baby given the name that year, girls and boys added together — the only count that means the same thing for both names. A line breaks where the name fell below five babies in a year — the point at which the SSA stops publishing it — rather than being drawn through a figure nobody published. A single published year in a gap shows as a dot.

Who was ahead

Meadow has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1914 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 1999, when Meabh had 5 and Meadow had 38.

Side by side

  Meabh Meadow
Total US births 7412,355
Most in one year 131,078
Babies in 2025 131,078
Estimated living today 7012,000
Median age today 37
Peak year 20252025
Best rank 7,885th girls286th girls
Rank in 2025 7,885th286th
First recorded 19991914
Girls / boys 74 / 012,343 / 12

A rank is a position within one sex’s list for one year, so the two rank rows are not subtracted from one another and the winning column is not marked on them. The living figure is a life-table estimate, not a count.

Which name is older

Half of the Meadows alive today are over 7; half the Meabhs are over 3. That is 4 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Both names abroad

Countries whose statistics office publishes both names, so the comparison can be made somewhere other than the United States.

Country Meabh Meadow
Ireland 2,067124
England and Wales 2491,874
Northern Ireland 99155
Scotland 41171

Every spelling a country files separately is added together, over whatever years that country publishes — which is not the same range in any two of them, so read the columns against each other and not the rows.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

Social Security Administration birth records, 1880–2025, public domain. Full histories: Meabh and Meadow.