Margo
A feminine form of the French name Marguerite, meaning "pearl".
Name Census estimates that about 19,760 living Americans carry the first name Margo. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Margo today is around 48 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Margo births was 1954 (720 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Margo. 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 Margo with official rankings and popularity over time.
People living today
20K
~ 1 in 17,346 Americans
Peak year
1954
720 babies that year
Average age
48
years old
1989 SSA rank
#545
Tracked since 1905
Census
Margo in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 20,947 people with the first name Margo, which placed it at #1,557 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
#1,557
National first-name rank
People counted
21K
20,947 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
6.9
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
75.9% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Margo
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Margo is White at 75.9%. The next largest groups are Black (11.5%) and Hispanic (7.9%). 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 Margo 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 Margo at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White75.9% · 15,903
- Black or African American11.5% · 2,419
- Hispanic or Latino7.9% · 1,653
- Two or more races3.0% · 622
- Asian and Pacific Islander1.0% · 201
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.7% · 149
Gender
Gender distribution for Margo
Out of the 26,699 babies given the name Margo since 1880, 99.9% were registered as female. The name sits firmly on the female side of the spectrum, with only a handful of male registrations across the entire dataset.
Margo as a male name
- Ranked #7,571 in 1989
- 6 male births in 1989
- Peak: 1941 (6 births)
Margo as a female name
- Ranked #545 in 2024
- 555 female births in 2024
- Peak: 1954 (715 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Margo appears almost entirely female. Of the 20,948 people counted with this name, 99.4% were female and only a very small share were male.
Popularity
Margo: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Margo from the 1900s through to the 2020s, spanning 13 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1950s, with 5,891 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 1950s peak, Margo remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Margo 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 Margo during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Margos live
The SSA's state-level files cover 47 states and territories. California, New York, Illinois recorded the most babies named Margo, while Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 457 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Margo
The name Margo originates from the medieval diminutive form of the ancient Germanic name Margaritta, which was derived from the Old French Marguerite. This name ultimately traces its roots back to the Greek word "margarites," meaning pearl. Margo was a popular name in various European countries during the Middle Ages and Renaissance periods.
One of the earliest recorded uses of the name Margo can be found in the works of Geoffrey Chaucer, the renowned English poet and author from the 14th century. In his literary masterpiece, The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer mentions a character named Margo.
Margo gained further recognition in the 16th century when it was adopted by the French aristocracy. Margot, a variant spelling, was famously borne by Queen Margot of France, also known as Marguerite de Valois (1553-1615), who played a significant role in the French Wars of Religion.
In the realm of literature, Margo was the name of a character in the novel "The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson" by Mark Twain, published in 1894. This literary reference helped to popularize the name in the English-speaking world.
Throughout history, several notable women have carried the name Margo. One such figure was Margo Albert (1917-1985), a German-American actress and dancer who gained fame in Hollywood during the mid-20th century. Another prominent bearer of the name was Margo Fonteyn (1919-1991), an English ballerina widely regarded as one of the greatest classical ballet dancers of the 20th century.
In the world of fashion, Margo Jefferies (1937-2023) was a Canadian actress and model who graced the covers of numerous magazines and appeared in several films throughout the 1960s and 1970s.
Margo St. James (born 1938) was an American activist and former sex worker who co-founded the organization COYOTE (Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics) in 1973, advocating for the decriminalization of prostitution and the rights of sex workers.
Lastly, Margo MacDonald (1943-2014) was a Scottish politician and independent Member of the Scottish Parliament, known for her outspoken nature and advocacy for various social and political causes.
People
Margo + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Margo 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
Margo: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Margo?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 19,760 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Margo 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 17,346 US residents.
Is Margo a common name?
We classify Margo as "Uncommon". It ranks above 98.5% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 26,699 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Margo most popular?
The single biggest year for Margo was 1954, when 720 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Margo is about 48 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Margo in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 20,947 people with the name Margo, or 6.94 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #1,557 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 Margo 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 Margo?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Margo appears almost entirely female. Of the 20,948 people counted with this name, 99.4% were female and only a very small share were male. 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 Margo?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Margo is White at 75.9%. The next largest groups are Black (11.5%) and Hispanic (7.9%). 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 Margo most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Margo in the 2020 Census, accounting for 75.9% (15,903 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 Margo in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Margo a female name?
Yes, 99.9% of people registered as Margo in the SSA data are female. 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 Margo still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Margo 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 Margo 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 Margo?
HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site, answers that with the living-bearer count in one glance.