Mccabe
An Irish surname derived from the Gaelic "mac aba" meaning "son of the abbot".
Name Census estimates that about 104 living Americans carry the first name Mccabe. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Mccabe today is around 21 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Mccabe births was 2007 (10 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Mccabe. 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.
People living today
104
~ 1 in 3,295,715 Americans
Peak year
2007
10 babies that year
Average age
21
years old
2016 SSA rank
#10,365
Tracked since 1995
Census
Mccabe in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 194 people with the first name Mccabe, which placed it at #39,126 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
#39,126
National first-name rank
People counted
194
194 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.1
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
88.7% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Mccabe
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Mccabe is White at 88.7%. The next largest groups are Two or More Races (3.6%) and Hispanic (3.1%). 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 Mccabe 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 Mccabe at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White88.7% · 172
- Two or more races3.6% · 7
- Hispanic or Latino3.1% · 6
- Asian and Pacific Islander2.6% · 5
- American Indian and Alaska Native2.1% · 4
Popularity
Mccabe: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Mccabe from the 1990s through to the 2010s, spanning 3 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2000s, with 49 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2000s peak, Mccabe remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Mccabe 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 Mccabe during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Origin
Meaning and history of Mccabe
The name Mccabe originated from the Irish Gaelic language and culture. It derives from the ancient Irish personal name "Mac Cába" which means "son of Cába". Cába itself is thought to have been a nickname derived from the word "cab" meaning bowed or crooked.
In the early medieval period, the name Mac Cába was commonly found across Ireland, particularly in the northern counties like Armagh and Down. It appeared in various Irish annals and records from the 7th century onwards, sometimes anglicized as McCabe or McKabe.
One of the earliest recorded bearers of the name was Muiredach Mac Cába, an Irish monk and scribe from County Down who lived around 700 AD. He is known for writing the Book of Armagh, an important 9th century manuscript containing some of the earliest written texts in Irish.
In the 12th century, Gilla Críst Mac Cába was a prominent ecclesiastical writer and historian from Armagh who authored several works relating to the history of Ireland and the diocese of Armagh.
During the 16th century Anglo-Norman conquest of Ireland, the name became more widely adopted in its anglicized forms of McCabe and McKabe as the traditional Gaelic naming practices gave way to English surnames and spellings.
One notable bearer was Sir Richard McCabe, born around 1558, who was an Irish soldier and landowner from County Fermanagh. He fought for the English crown during the Nine Years War and was knighted for his service.
In the 18th century, Edward McCabe (1816-1885) was an Irish revolutionary and member of the Young Ireland movement who took part in the Irish Rebellion of 1848 against British rule.
Other historically significant individuals with the name Mccabe include William McCabe (1841-1920), an Irish-American Catholic bishop who served as the first Bishop of Marquette, and Jack McCabe (1905-1970), an American baseball player for the Philadelphia Athletics in the 1930s.
People
Mccabe + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Mccabe 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
Mccabe: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Mccabe?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 104 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Mccabe 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 3,295,715 US residents.
Is Mccabe a common name?
We classify Mccabe as "Very Rare". It ranks above 65.1% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 105 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Mccabe most popular?
The single biggest year for Mccabe was 2007, when 10 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Mccabe is about 21 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Mccabe in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 194 people with the name Mccabe, or 0.06 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #39,126 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 Mccabe 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 Mccabe?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Mccabe leans strongly male. 172 people counted with this name were male (89.1%), compared with 21 female bearers (10.9%). 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 Mccabe?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Mccabe is White at 88.7%. The next largest groups are Two or More Races (3.6%) and Hispanic (3.1%). 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 Mccabe most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Mccabe in the 2020 Census, accounting for 88.7% (172 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 Mccabe in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Mccabe a male name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Mccabe 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 Mccabe still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Mccabe 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 Mccabe 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 are named Mccabe?
Want to know how many Americans are named Mccabe? HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site, puts the living-bearer count front and centre.