The first name Margaret is of ancient Greek origin and goes back to the still very similar sounding word ‘margarites’. Translated, the term means ‘pearl’.
Margaret is a first name typically given to girls, but in rare cases also used as a boys name.
The name Margaret isn’t among the current fashionable names in our top 10 stats, but nonetheless, it’s still very popular and common. In our SmartGenius ranking of all girls names, Margaret ranks 136. Recently, out of every 10,000 newborn girls, approximately 13 were named Margaret. In total, there are currently 1,131,424 people – children, adults and seniors – named Margaret living in the United States, which is approximately 0.34 % of the entire population.
The first name Margaret is of ancient Greek origin and goes back to the still very similar sounding word ‘margarites’. Translated, the term means ‘pearl’.
Margaret is the name of.. many ships, for example a Scottish warship built in 1505 and an American maritime fur trade ship built in 1791.
History tends to focus on the most famous and best. But even those who play second fiddle leave their mark: Margaret is one of those names without which the orchestra would be incomplete. In fact, Margaret has reached the SmartGenius top ranking #3 more than once, although the last time was some while ago, way back in the last century in 1911. But even though the peak of its popularity was many decades ago, the name Margaret has been given to newborn girls every year since records began. Margaret is of exceptional enduring popularity, conveying the special vibes of the20th century.
In years where the graph has no value, the name Margaret was given less than five times or even none at all in the entire USA.
The popularity of the name Margaret peaked long ago, but the name has nevertheless arrived in the 21st century. In 2022, it ranked #121 in our statistics - perhaps a far cry from when your grandparents or great-grandparents were kids and Margaret made it into the top ten more than once, but still: traditional names often prove to be perennial favorites - so, maybe it's only a matter of time before Margaret tops out again.
Margaret is one of the most common names in the U.S. – in all states combined, 1,130,695 women would currently turn around if you called out MARGARET really loud. Across all states and age groups, this lands Margaret on position 7 in our SmartGenius ranking of the top female names – of course, the current popularity as a baby name for newborns looks somewhat different, as you can see from the statistics above. With so many women named Margaret, it’s no surprise that the name is widely used in every single state in the U.S., but would you have guessed that it’s especially popular in Pennsylvania? Here, 1,38% of all female residents bear the name Margaret – that is a total of 115,653 women with this popular name and no other state has as many women named Margaret relative to its population. But that’s not all the popularity: in Pennsylvania Margaret belongs to the top 10 of all womens names – the 115,653 elevate their name up to place #2 in the SmartGenius ranking of the most common female names for Pennsylvania.
Well, you might say, you probably figured that out yourself! But what you might not know is: The letter M is a quite popular first letter for girls' names. That’s because 8.5% of all common girls’ names in the US begin with this letter. Only the first letters A and S are more common for girls' names.
With eight letters, the name Margaret is long compared to other names. In fact, 14.5% of all common first names in the US consist of exactly eight letters. 78% of all first names are shorter, while only 8% of all boys’ and girls’ names use nine letters or even more. On average, first names in the US (not counting hyphenated names) are 6.5 letters long with no significant differences between boys' and girls' names.
Therefore: As 8.5% of all girls' names start with an M, this initial letter occurs nearly 2.5-times as often as all 26 letters on average – and the most common one of all the girls’ names starting with M is Mary.
If your name is Margaret and someone asks after your name, you can of course just tell them what it is. But sometimes that isn't so easy - what if it's too loud, and you don't understand them well? Or what if the other person is so far away that you can see them but not hear them? In these situations, you can communicate your name in so many other ways: you call spell it, sign it, or even use a flag to wave it...
So that everyone really understands you when you have to spell the name Margaret, you can simply say:
Mouse
Apple
Rocket
Goat
Apple
Rocket
Elephant
Tiger
Braille is made up of dots, which the blind and visually impaired can feel to read words.
Margaret
Margaret
Just use American Sign Language!
These flags are used for maritime communication - each flag represents a letter.
M
A
R
G
A
R
E
T
In the navy, sailors of two ships might wave flags to each other to send messages. A sailor holds two flags in specific positions to represent different letters.
M
A
R
G
A
R
E
T
In Morse code, letters and other characters are represented only by a series of short and long tones. For example, a short tone followed by a long tone stands for the letter A. Margaret sounds like this:
