Malachy
Malachy reached its high-water mark in 2002 at number 2,685, and has been recorded 690 times in all. In 2025 it ranked 8,243rd. About 620 Malachys are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 18.
Popularity, 1880–2025
boys named Malachy
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 690
- Estimated living today
- 620
- Median age today
- 18
- Peak year
- 2002
- Best rank
- 2,685th
- Rank in 2025
- 8,243rd
- First recorded
- 1897
How old the living Malachys are
born that year still alive today
Of the 690 babies given the name since 1897, about 620 are alive — 90 in every hundred. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 2007 and half after.
An estimate, not a count. SSA births aged forward through SSA cohort life tables, which know nothing about who left the country or arrived in it — so for a name that mostly came to America rather than being born in it, this is a floor rather than a figure. Where you fall among living Americans.
Where the name comes from
Origin Irish
From Irish Maolmhaodhóg and Maolseachnaill/Maolseachlainn, influenced by the etymologically unrelated name Malachi, which is of Hebrew origin.
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Malachys
- Saint Malachy (1094–1148)Irish archbishop
- Malachy McCourt (1931–2024)Irish-American actor, writer and politician
People named Malachy with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Malachy is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Malachy is most concentrated in New York (10.4×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 2002
The most popular boys’ names the year Malachy peaked:
Malachy elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| England and Wales boys | Malachy | 1,099 | 477th |
| Ireland boys | Malachy | 598 | 123rd |
| Northern Ireland boys | Malachy | 216 | 153rd |
| Scotland boys | Malachy | 102 | 349th |
Counts come from each country's own records and are not comparable with the US figures above, which cover different years and a different definition of a recorded name. Where a country writes the name several ways, the spellings are added together and the most common is shown. A row marked name registrations is counting something else: Portugal ranks each of a child's two given names separately, so a girl registered Maria Leonor is in both the Maria row and the Leonor row, and that figure is not a number of children.
Related names
Malachy against another name
Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.
Try it on yourself
Source: US Social Security Administration, national and state baby-name files, 1880–2025. Counts include only births registered with the SSA, and names with fewer than five births in a year are not published. The living estimate applies SSA cohort life tables to those births; it counts people born in the United States, so it misses anyone who arrived later and anyone who has left.