Maeve
given name · English · Latin script
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Maeve is a given name, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country. In Oman it is the 43rd most common given name. It appears chiefly in English and Portuguese, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: Perhaps 'intoxicating one'; legendary queen of Connacht, possibly an older goddess.
- IEIreland1 in 1.9K◐
- AUAustralia1 in 14K
- CACanada1 in 18K
carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.
- ≈15K ●
- 2 ●
- Sources
- 270 ●
- 1 in 24K ◐
across 9 countries
recorded for this name
25K records
Official registry-verified
United States
Spellings & scripts●
One other spelling is counted as the same name:
Locally spelled Mave in ZA South Africa.
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records; ○ marks a model's transliteration. Click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin●
Perhaps 'intoxicating one'; legendary queen of Connacht, possibly an older goddess.
Sources 1
- Irish first names
Where in the world●
Sorted by bearers counted by national registers, records where none counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | — | 13,929 | 15K rec. | 1 in 24K | 14K | Maeve | 270 |
| AU Australia | #997 | 8,340 | 2.5K rec. | — | 427 | Maeve | 115 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | 5,812 | 2.6K rec. | — | 1.3K | Maeve | 112 |
| IE Ireland | #220 | 4,894 | 1.7K rec. | — | 43 | Maeve | 113 |
| CA Canada | — | 4,643 | 437 rec. | — | 68 | Maeve | 69 |
| PH Philippines | — | 796 | 274 rec. | — | — | Maeve | 18 |
| OM Oman | #43 | 703 | 3 rec. | — | 700 | Maeve | 4 |
| FR France | — | 450 | 0 rec. | 1 in 151K | 450 | — | 1 |
| NL Netherlands | — | 339△ | 68 rec. | 1 in 51K | 339 | Maeve | 18 |
| BR Brazil | — | 318 | 172 rec. | 1 in 666K | 318 | Maeve | 56 |
| DE Germany | — | 208 | 189 rec. | — | 1 | Maeve | 38 |
| BE Belgium | — | 137 | 30 rec. | — | 32 | Maeve | 9 |
Roughly 14K people in United States bear this name (about 1 in 24K). Estimates project the name's share of our records onto national population, so each is only as good as the record base beside it — the Basis column gives that base; rows marked △ rest on fewer records than the estimate itself and are order-of-magnitude at best.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table. How that works.
Languages●
- English38K72%
- Portuguese4K8%
- French3.5K6%
- Spanish1.6K3%
- Arabic8632%
Show as table
| Name | Records | Note |
|---|---|---|
| English | 38,387 | 72% |
| Portuguese | 4,015 | 8% |
| French | 3,469 | 6% |
| Spanish | 1,595 | 3% |
| Arabic | 863 | 2% |
Language is read off each record's context, not declared by the bearer; a share is of all records for this spelling.
Other recorded senses●
Maeve is also recorded in 3 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In English, A female given name from Irish of mostly Irish usage.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In French, Origine incertaine; peut venir de Marie et Ève, ou être une forme francisée de Maéva (« bienvenue » en tahitien).
as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
In English, Irish name, 'she who intoxicates'
as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Over time●
Show as table
| Year | records |
|---|---|
| 1940 | 8 |
| 1941 | 10 |
| 1943 | 6 |
| 1944 | 5 |
| 1945 | 6 |
| 1947 | 7 |
| 1949 | 8 |
| 1951 | 7 |
| 1952 | 8 |
| 1953 | 9 |
| 1954 | 11 |
| 1955 | 7 |
| 1956 | 5 |
| 1957 | 5 |
| 1958 | 11 |
| 1959 | 11 |
| 1960 | 15 |
| 1961 | 12 |
| 1962 | 5 |
| 1963 | 16 |
| 1964 | 12 |
| 1965 | 11 |
| 1966 | 7 |
| 1967 | 6 |
| 1968 | 6 |
| 1969 | 12 |
| 1971 | 10 |
| 1972 | 9 |
| 1973 | 8 |
| 1974 | 8 |
| 1975 | 7 |
| 1976 | 9 |
| 1977 | 12 |
| 1978 | 13 |
| 1979 | 13 |
| 1980 | 13 |
| 1981 | 21 |
| 1982 | 19 |
| 1983 | 23 |
| 1984 | 30 |
| 1985 | 32 |
| 1986 | 46 |
| 1987 | 41 |
| 1988 | 56 |
| 1989 | 52 |
| 1990 | 48 |
| 1991 | 67 |
| 1992 | 79 |
| 1993 | 90 |
| 1994 | 102 |
| 1995 | 133 |
| 1996 | 141 |
| 1997 | 207 |
| 1998 | 240 |
| 1999 | 343 |
| 2000 | 295 |
| 2001 | 317 |
| 2002 | 350 |
| 2003 | 413 |
| 2004 | 378 |
| 2005 | 398 |
| 2006 | 447 |
| 2007 | 480 |
| 2008 | 486 |
| 2009 | 508 |
| 2010 | 546 |
| 2011 | 489 |
| 2012 | 571 |
| 2013 | 625 |
| 2014 | 648 |
| 2015 | 703 |
| 2016 | 820 |
| 2017 | 867 |
| 2018 | 973 |
| 2019 | 1,303 |
| 2020 | 1,644 |
| 2021 | 2,253 |
| 2022 | 2,676 |
| 2023 | 3,062 |
| 2024 | 3,105 |
| 2025 | 3,153 |
US SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) — 81 years between 1940–2025. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.
Notable people with this name●
- Maeve Binchyb. 1940IEIrish novelist
- Meave Leakeyb. 1942GBnot in their usual nameBritish paleoanthropologist
- Maeve van der Steenb. 1949NLDutch actress (born 1949)
- Maeve Quinlanb. 1964USAmerican actress
- Maeve Jinkingsb. 1976BRBrazilian actress
- Maeve Kennedy McKeanb. 1979USAmerican public health official, human rights attorney and academic ( 1979-2020)
- Maeve Higginsb. 1981IEIrish comedian
- Bridget Phillipsonb. 1983GBnot in their usual nameBritish politician (born 1983)
- Maeve Dermodyb. 1985AUAustralian actress
- Maeve Pressb. 2003USAmerican actress
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
Evidence●
Attested in 60 sources across 32 countries.
Reference works 3
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-09-12 data build · 427 rows in the corpus for this spelling.
Frequently asked questions
- How common is the name Maeve?
- We estimate roughly 15 thousand people bear Maeve (counting its spellings and scripts) across 9 countries in our records.
- In which country does Maeve have the most bearers?
- We estimate about 14 thousand people bear Maeve in the United States, more than in any other country in our records, where it is most often spelled maeve.
- How common is Maeve compared with other names?
- In Oman, Maeve is the 43rd most common given name of 5,236 given names recorded there.
- Is Maeve a male or female name?
- Maeve is a female name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
- What does the name Maeve mean?
- Recorded meaning: Perhaps 'intoxicating one'; legendary queen of Connacht, possibly an older goddess.
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/maeveThe same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. Rate-limited for casual use. Bulk access and licensing.
About this data
Data snapshot . Figures are rebuilt periodically and will change.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Maeve” — the 43rd most common given name in Oman. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.