Mackie
Scottish diminutive of the last name "MacKay", likely meaning "son of fire".
Name Census estimates that about 759 living Americans carry the first name Mackie. It appears on both sides of the gender split, with 63.3% of registrations being male. The average person named Mackie today is around 62 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Mackie births was 1942 (44 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Mackie. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
For a British comparison, Name Census UK has a UK baby-name profile for Mackie with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Mackie sits in rare territory as a truly gender-neutral name, given to boys and girls in near-equal numbers.
People living today
759
~ 1 in 451,587 Americans
Peak year
1942
44 babies that year
Average age
62
years old
2024 SSA rank
#11,782
Tracked since 1890
Census
Mackie in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 910 people with the first name Mackie, which placed it at #13,318 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#13,318
National first-name rank
People counted
910
910 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.3
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
69.1% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Mackie
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Mackie is White at 69.1%. The next largest groups are Black (18.5%) and Hispanic (3.8%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Mackie described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Mackie at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White69.1% · 629
- Black or African American18.5% · 168
- Hispanic or Latino3.8% · 35
- Asian and Pacific Islander3.6% · 33
- Two or more races3.4% · 31
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.5% · 14
Gender
Gender distribution for Mackie
Mackie is one of the more evenly split names in the SSA data. Of the 1,615 total registrations, 1,023 (63.3%) were male and 592 (36.7%) were female.
Mackie as a male name
- Ranked #11,782 in 2024
- 6 male births in 2024
- Peak: 1942 (34 births)
Mackie as a female name
- Ranked #14,513 in 2024
- 6 female births in 2024
- Peak: 1936 (19 births)
2020 Census snapshot
The 2020 Census sex table shows Mackie on both sides of the split. Of the 908 people counted with this name, 568 were male (62.6%) and 340 were female (37.4%).
Popularity
Mackie: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Mackie from the 1890s through to the 2020s, spanning 14 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1940s, with 362 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1940s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Mackie by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Mackie during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Mackies live
The SSA's state-level files cover 8 states and territories. Texas, North Carolina, Tennessee recorded the most babies named Mackie, while South Carolina, Mississippi, Georgia recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 8 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Mackie
The given name Mackie has its roots in Gaelic and Scottish culture, tracing back to the Middle Ages. It's derived from the Gaelic name "Mac Aoidh," which means "son of fire" or "son of Hugh." The name Hugh itself comes from the Germanic name Hugi, meaning "heart, mind, or soul."
Mackie was initially a patronymic surname, indicating the bearer was the son of someone named Hugh or Aodh. Over time, it evolved into a given name in its own right, particularly popular in Scotland and Ireland. Similar spellings include Mackey, MacKie, and MacKay.
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Mackie can be found in the Annals of Ulster, an ancient Irish chronicle dating back to the 15th century. It mentions a "Mackie O'Neill," who was likely a member of the influential O'Neill clan of Ulster.
Throughout history, several notable individuals have borne the name Mackie. One prominent figure was John Mackie (1748-1832), a Scottish philosopher and professor at the University of Glasgow. He was known for his work on moral philosophy and his contributions to the Scottish Enlightenment.
Another notable Mackie was Donald Mackie (1835-1907), a Scottish-American businessman and philanthropist. He made his fortune in the steel industry and donated much of his wealth to educational institutions, including the University of Pennsylvania.
In the realm of literature, Mackie Messer is the name of a character in Bertolt Brecht's famous play "The Threepenny Opera," first performed in 1928. The character's name is a reference to the German word "Messer," meaning "knife," and is a nod to the character's criminal background.
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Mackie in Scotland can be found in the records of the Clan Mackay, a powerful Scottish clan with roots in the northern Highlands. The name appears in various documents and records dating back to the 13th century.
In more recent times, Mackie has been the name of several notable individuals, including Mackie Shilstone (born 1947), an American fitness trainer and author, and Mackie Binswanger (born 1955), an American artist known for her abstract paintings and sculptures.
People
Mackie + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Mackie as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with M
Other first names starting with M with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Mackie: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Mackie?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 759 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Mackie going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 451,587 US residents.
Is Mackie a common name?
We classify Mackie as "Very Rare". It ranks above 88.2% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 1,615 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Mackie most popular?
The single biggest year for Mackie was 1942, when 44 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Mackie is about 62 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Mackie in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 910 people with the name Mackie, or 0.30 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #13,318 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Mackie in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Mackie?
The 2020 Census sex table shows Mackie on both sides of the split. Of the 908 people counted with this name, 568 were male (62.6%) and 340 were female (37.4%). The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Mackie?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Mackie is White at 69.1%. The next largest groups are Black (18.5%) and Hispanic (3.8%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Mackie most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Mackie in the 2020 Census, accounting for 69.1% (629 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Mackie in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Mackie a male name?
Yes, 63.3% of people registered as Mackie in the SSA data are male. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Is Mackie still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Mackie in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Mackie can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.
How many people have the name Mackie?
For a quick modern estimate, our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers that in one glance, with the living-bearer count front and centre.