Peg
given name · English · Latin script
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Peg is a given name, with more bearers in Finland than in any other country, where it is the 19th most common given name. It appears chiefly in English and , written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: Pet form of Margaret, a variant of Meg.
- FIFinland1 in 75◐
- GBUnited Kingdom1 in 188K
- USUnited States1 in 235K
carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.
- ≈77K ●
- 3 ●
- Sources
- 287 ●
- 1 in 75 ◐
across 5 countries
recorded for this name
51K records
Official registry-verified
Finland
Spellings & scripts●
Locally spelled Pekka in FI Finland, SE Sweden, MX Mexico and 6 more, Peka in CZ Czechia, PL Poland, UA Ukraine, Peck in TH Thailand and Pech in LA Laos.
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●
Pet form of Margaret, a variant of Meg. The reason for the alternation of M- and P-, which occurs also in Molly/Polly, is not known, it has been ascribed to Celtic influence, but this particular alternation does not correspond to any of the usual mutational patterns in Celtic languages.
Sources 1
- A concise dictionary of first names
Attested across 16 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world●
Sorted by bearers counted by national registers, records where none counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FI Finland | #19 | 73,831△ | 9.6K rec. | 1 in 75 | 105K | Pekka | 138 |
| SE Sweden | — | 2,055△ | 599 rec. | 1 in 5K | 2.1K | Pekka | 52 |
| US United States | — | 1,417 | 35K rec. | 1 in 235K | 40K | Peg | 287 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | 1,102 | 1.1K rec. | — | listed | Peg | 41 |
| TH Thailand | — | 967 | 803 rec. | — | #908,149 | Peck | 44 |
| CA Canada | — | 692 | 673 rec. | — | — | Peg | 55 |
| CZ Czechia | — | 522 | 18 rec. | — | 2.1K | Peka | 13 |
| AU Australia | — | 443 | 448 rec. | — | 1 | Peg | 44 |
| EE Estonia | #770 | 400 | 214 rec. | — | 12 | Pekka | 8 |
| DE Germany | — | 347 | 396 rec. | — | 1 | Peg | 28 |
| LA Laos | — | 271 | 16 rec. | — | — | Pech | 7 |
| UA Ukraine | — | 234 | 254 rec. | — | — | Peka | 5 |
Roughly 74K people in Finland bear this name (about 1 in 75). 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●
- English36K80%
- 1.7K4%
- Spanish1.5K3%
- German1.1K2%
- French1K2%
Show as table
| Name | Records | Note |
|---|---|---|
| English | 36,200 | 80% |
| 1,694 | 4% | |
| Spanish | 1,451 | 3% |
| German | 1,078 | 2% |
| French | 1,028 | 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●
Peg is also recorded in 5 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 cylindrical wooden or metal object used to fasten or as a bearing between objects.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
abbreviation of Pegasi (“Pegasus”, genitive)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Javanese, sound of a hard blow on the side of the head, as when one's ears are boxed
as a wordAustronesian Comparative Dictionary (ACD), CLDF v2.0
In Swedish, a tee (peg on which the golf ball is placed)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Filipino, desired way or style of doing things
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
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 |
|---|---|
| 1913 | 6 |
| 1914 | 5 |
| 1916 | 6 |
| 1917 | 5 |
| 1923 | 5 |
| 1924 | 6 |
| 1926 | 7 |
| 1927 | 6 |
| 1928 | 6 |
| 1929 | 9 |
| 1933 | 6 |
| 1934 | 10 |
| 1935 | 15 |
| 1936 | 15 |
| 1937 | 18 |
| 1938 | 17 |
| 1939 | 22 |
| 1940 | 23 |
| 1941 | 22 |
| 1942 | 19 |
| 1943 | 16 |
| 1944 | 18 |
| 1945 | 20 |
| 1946 | 32 |
| 1947 | 26 |
| 1948 | 31 |
| 1949 | 30 |
| 1950 | 21 |
| 1951 | 17 |
| 1952 | 33 |
| 1953 | 25 |
| 1954 | 24 |
| 1955 | 29 |
| 1956 | 33 |
| 1957 | 43 |
| 1958 | 41 |
| 1959 | 37 |
| 1960 | 30 |
| 1961 | 21 |
| 1962 | 27 |
| 1963 | 13 |
| 1964 | 18 |
| 1965 | 10 |
| 1966 | 6 |
| 1967 | 7 |
| 1968 | 5 |
US SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) — 46 years between 1913–1968. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.
Notable people with this name●
- Peg Woffingtonb. 1720IEIrish actress (1720-1760)
- Peg Fenwickb. 1907USAmerican screenwriter and playwright
- Peg Entwistleb. 1908USBritish actress (1908-1932)
- Peg LaCentrab. 1910USAmerican singer and actor (1910-1996)
- Peg Hilliasb. 1914USactress (1914-1960)
- Peg Lynchb. 1916USAmerican screenwriter and actress (1916-2015)
- Peg Phillipsb. 1918USAmerican actress (1918-2002)
- Peg Dixonb. 1923USAmerican actress (1923-2015)
- Peg Yorkinb. 1927USAmerican feminist activist (1927–2023)
- Peg Parnevikb. 1995USSwedish-born American singer-songwriter
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 17 sources across 10 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 1.4K | #9,683 |
| IN India | Instate — India surnames by state (real counts) from electoral rolls | — | 183 | #1,079 |
| ES Spain | INE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal) | — | 99 | #27,720 |
| ES Spain | INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos) | — | 99 | #27,638 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1957 | 43 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1958 | 41 | — |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 39 | #16,138 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1959 | 37 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1956 | 33 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1952 | 33 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1946 | 32 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1948 | 31 | — |
Reference works 1
- 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 · 86 rows in the corpus for this spelling.
Frequently asked questions
- How common is the name Peg?
- We estimate roughly 77 thousand people bear Peg (counting its spellings and scripts) across 5 countries in our records.
- In which country does Peg have the most bearers?
- We estimate about 74 thousand people bear Peg in Finland, more than in any other country in our records, where it is most often spelled pekka.
- Where is Peg most common?
- Peg is densest in Finland, where the national register counts about 1 in 75 people carrying it.
- How common is Peg compared with other names?
- In Finland, Peg is the 19th most common given name of 51,554 given names recorded there.
- Is Peg a male or female name?
- Peg is a male 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 Peg mean?
- Recorded meaning: Pet form of Margaret, a variant of Meg.
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/pegThe 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, “Peg” — the 19th most common given name in Finland. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.