Craig
- Pronunciation
- [Craig]
- Gender
- Male
- Meaning
- Dwells At The Crag
- Origin
- Scottish
About the Name Craig
Craig is a Scottish name derived directly from the Gaelic word creag, meaning a crag or rocky outcrop. Scottish place names containing the element are numerous — from Craigmillar to Craigavon — and the transfer of such topographic terms into personal names was a well-established Gaelic practice, giving the bearer an identity rooted in the rugged landscape of Scotland. The name carries a clipped, single-syllable directness that aligned naturally with the preference for strong, unadorned masculine names in twentieth-century America.
A well-known bearer is Craig Ferguson (born 1962), a Scottish-American TV host, comedian, actor, and writer whose ten-year tenure as host of CBS's The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson (2005–2014) made him one of the prominent figures of American late-night television.
In US Social Security records, Craig first entered the top-1000 in 1947 and climbed steadily to its peak of #39 in 1969, accumulating more than 267,000 top-1000 births over its charted years — a figure that reflects genuine mass popularity during the postwar baby-boom era. It remained on the chart until 2017, exiting with 209 births at #982 that year. No standard variants for Craig are widely recorded, reflecting its status as a self-contained form without widely adopted spelling alternatives.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Craig
US Popularity History (1947–2017)
Annual US births named Craig by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 1960 with 10,720 boys named Craig (boy rank #41 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2017, ranked #982 for boys (209 US births). That's 941 places below its 1960 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 Craig Most Popular?
Average boy-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 boys-name rankings — a per-capita measure that isn't biased toward large states. For Craig the strongest states are Massachusetts, Wisconsin, Louisiana.
Strongest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Massachusetts | #535 | 35 |
| 2 | Wisconsin | #699 | 18 |
| 3 | Louisiana | #740 | 30 |
| 4 | Michigan | #757 | 28 |
| 5 | Pennsylvania | #767 | 64 |
| 6 | Missouri | #838 | 16 |
| 7 | Ohio | #843 | 38 |
| 8 | New Jersey | #857 | 21 |
| 9 | Arizona | #876 | 16 |
| 10 | New York | #885 | 43 |
Weakest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Georgia | #896 | 38 |
| 2 | New York | #885 | 43 |
| 3 | Arizona | #876 | 16 |
| 4 | New Jersey | #857 | 21 |
| 5 | Ohio | #843 | 38 |
| 6 | Missouri | #838 | 16 |
| 7 | Pennsylvania | #767 | 64 |
| 8 | Michigan | #757 | 28 |
| 9 | Louisiana | #740 | 30 |
| 10 | Wisconsin | #699 | 18 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Craig in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Famous People Named Craig
1 notable figure from history and culture who share the name Craig.
- Craig Ferguson — TV Show Host (1962)
Looking for names like Craig?
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 Craig to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Craig against today's most popular boys-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).