Morgan
- Pronunciation
- [Mor-gan]
- Gender
- Male
- Meaning
- Fighter Of The Sea
- Origin
- Irish
About the Name Morgan
Morgan is a name of Irish and Welsh heritage, built on elements meaning sea and fighter — yielding the vivid compound sense of sea warrior. In Welsh tradition the name appears in several forms, including the legendary Morgan le Fay of Arthurian mythology, a figure of great power and ambiguity. The Irish and Welsh surname tradition also produced many bearers of the name before it crossed fully into first-name use. Recorded variants — Morgaine, Morgana, Morgann, and Morgen — reflect the breadth of its Celtic spelling history.
Morgan Freeman (born 1937) is an American actor and narrator whose six-decade career and instantly recognizable baritone voice have made him one of the most iconic American screen actors of his generation. Morgan Tsvangirai (1952–2018) was a Zimbabwean trade-union leader and politician who founded the Movement for Democratic Change in 1999 and served as Prime Minister of Zimbabwe from 2009 to 2013 in a power-sharing government.
In the SSA top-1000, Morgan first entered the male top-1000 in 2000 and peaked at #310 in 2004, recording 14,310 total top-1000 births. Unlike many names from that era, it has maintained steady traction: #540 with 550 births in 2022, #551 with 530 births in 2023, and #530 with 560 births in 2024, demonstrating a resilience uncommon for names of its generation. Recorded variants include Morgaine, Morgana, Morgann, and Morgen.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Morgan
US Popularity History (1987–2025)
Annual US births named Morgan by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 1995 with 10,877 girls named Morgan (girl rank #23 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #312 for girls (977 US births). That's 289 places below its 1995 peak.
Source: US Social Security Administration. Limitations: US birth-certificate data only; names appearing fewer than 5 times in a given year are suppressed for privacy; spelling variants are counted separately. For names that ranked outside the US top 100 before year 2000, only the years they reached the top 100 are shown — the chart may have gaps for less-popular historical names.
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Where in the US Is Morgan Most Popular?
Average girl-name rank within each state across 2016–2025 SSA records. A lower number means the name appears closer to the top of that state's girls-name rankings — a per-capita measure that isn't biased toward large states. For Morgan the strongest states are Vermont, Michigan, New Hampshire.
Strongest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Vermont | #89 | 17 |
| 2 | Michigan | #125 | 713 |
| 3 | New Hampshire | #134 | 81 |
| 4 | District of Columbia | #139 | 69 |
| 5 | Massachusetts | #140 | 394 |
| 6 | Minnesota | #143 | 369 |
| 7 | Connecticut | #143 | 211 |
| 8 | North Dakota | #148 | 48 |
| 9 | Delaware | #149 | 40 |
| 10 | Wisconsin | #149 | 354 |
Weakest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Oklahoma | #366 | 129 |
| 2 | Nevada | #310 | 88 |
| 3 | Texas | #306 | 1,017 |
| 4 | Arizona | #301 | 223 |
| 5 | California | #301 | 1,102 |
| 6 | Florida | #298 | 587 |
| 7 | Idaho | #281 | 65 |
| 8 | Arkansas | #280 | 111 |
| 9 | Oregon | #271 | 132 |
| 10 | New Mexico | #268 | 37 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Morgan in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Variant Forms
Famous People Named Morgan
2 notable figures from history and culture who share the name Morgan.
- Morgan Freeman — Movie Actor (1937)
- Morgan Tsvangirai is the former prime minister of Zimbabwe.
Looking for names like Morgan?
A dedicated page with 60+ related names — spelling variants, rhymes, alliterations, same-origin matches, and shared meaning concepts — lives at its own URL so each kind of similarity gets a deeper treatment than fits here.
Compare Morgan to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Morgan against today's most popular girls-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).
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