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Meabh vs Meaghan

American parents have registered 14,043 Meaghans since 1880, against 74 Meabhs. But in 2025 it was Meabh that was commoner, 13 babies to fewer than five.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Meabh against Meaghan, 1880 to 2025 0 200 400 600 800 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Meabh Meaghan

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

Of the 67 years in which either name was published, Meaghan for 62 years and Meabh for 5 years. The lead changed hands once.

Side by side

  Meabh Meaghan
Total US births 7414,043
Most in one year 13744
Babies in 2025 13under 5
Estimated living today 7014,000
Median age today 335
Peak year 20251986
Best rank 7,885th girls325th girls
Rank in 2025 7,885thunranked
First recorded 19991955
Girls / boys 74 / 014,036 / 7

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 Meaghans alive today are over 35; half the Meabhs are over 3. That is 32 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 Meaghan
Ireland 2,06782
Northern Ireland 99132
England and Wales 249107
Scotland 4135

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 Meaghan.