Primarily a girl's name · 100% girls
Origin: IrishMaeve, Meave, Maev or Maiv, Maiev, Mabh is a female given name of Irish origin. It comes from the Irish name Méabh, which was spelt Meadhbh or Maedhbh in Early Modern Irish, Meḋḃ or Meaḋḃ in Middle Irish, and Medb in Old Irish.
From Wikipedia
In Pythagorean numerology, every letter has a value from 1 to 9. Adding the letters of Maeve yields these three numbers — a playful read on the name's character.
378% — no name in this batch climbed faster than Maeve over the past decade, hitting 3,098 births in 2024, though its best-ever rank, #73, actually arrived a year earlier, in 2023.
Just 26,442 people have carried this name in the US total, dating only to 1940, a small base that helps explain such an outsized percentage swing.
Novelist Maeve Binchy, active from the 1980s on, is the enrichment data's only namesake — a single Irish literary figure behind a name whose American popularity is entirely recent.
Why did you choose this name — or what does it mean to you? Approved stories appear on this page.
→ See names similar to Maeve · Compare Maeve with another name → · Popular names of the 2020s · Girls names starting with M
Rank is among all girls' names registered that year.
| Year | Babies | Rank |
|---|---|---|
| 1940 | 8 | #3,399 |
| 1941 | 10 | #2,967 |
| 1943 | 6 | #4,495 |
| 1944 | 5 | #4,994 |
| 1945 | 6 | #4,337 |
| 1947 | 7 | #4,601 |
| 1949 | 8 | #4,103 |
| 1951 | 7 | #4,649 |
| 1952 | 8 | #4,341 |
| 1953 | 9 | #4,111 |
| 1954 | 11 | #3,614 |
| 1955 | 7 | #5,014 |
| 1956 | 5 | #6,522 |
| 1957 | 5 | #6,674 |
| 1958 | 11 | #3,852 |
| 1959 | 11 | #3,946 |
| 1960 | 15 | #3,294 |
| 1961 | 12 | #3,915 |
| 1962 | 5 | #7,166 |
| 1963 | 16 | #3,273 |
| 1964 | 12 | #4,013 |
| 1965 | 11 | #4,101 |
| 1966 | 7 | #5,588 |
| 1967 | 6 | #6,488 |
| 1968 | 6 | #6,700 |
| 1969 | 12 | #4,327 |
| 1971 | 10 | #5,342 |
| 1972 | 9 | #5,741 |
| 1973 | 8 | #6,420 |
| 1974 | 8 | #6,599 |
| 1975 | 7 | #7,631 |
| 1976 | 9 | #6,370 |
| 1977 | 12 | #5,395 |
| 1978 | 13 | #5,085 |
| 1979 | 13 | #5,284 |
| 1980 | 13 | #5,422 |
| 1981 | 21 | #3,807 |
| 1982 | 19 | #4,113 |
| 1983 | 23 | #3,499 |
| 1984 | 30 | #2,968 |
| 1985 | 32 | #2,905 |
| 1986 | 45 | #2,288 |
| 1987 | 41 | #2,511 |
| 1988 | 56 | #2,083 |
| 1989 | 52 | #2,292 |
| 1990 | 48 | #2,505 |
| 1991 | 67 | #2,046 |
| 1992 | 79 | #1,822 |
| 1993 | 90 | #1,674 |
| 1994 | 102 | #1,529 |
| 1995 | 133 | #1,270 |
| 1996 | 141 | #1,241 |
| 1997 | 207 | #955 |
| 1998 | 240 | #881 |
| 1999 | 343 | #669 |
| 2000 | 295 | #778 |
| 2001 | 317 | #757 |
| 2002 | 350 | #710 |
| 2003 | 413 | #644 |
| 2004 | 378 | #710 |
| 2005 | 398 | #696 |
| 2006 | 447 | #647 |
| 2007 | 480 | #622 |
| 2008 | 486 | #636 |
| 2009 | 508 | #593 |
| 2010 | 546 | #536 |
| 2011 | 489 | #591 |
| 2012 | 571 | #532 |
| 2013 | 625 | #485 |
| 2014 | 648 | #487 |
| 2015 | 703 | #452 |
| 2016 | 820 | #406 |
| 2017 | 867 | #360 |
| 2018 | 973 | #334 |
| 2019 | 1,303 | #244 |
| 2020 | 1,644 | #173 |
| 2021 | 2,253 | #124 |
| 2022 | 2,676 | #103 |
| 2023 | 3,057 | #73 |
| 2024 | 3,098 | #75 |
