Margaret

Margaret comes from the Greek margarites, "pearl," a word the Greeks themselves borrowed from somewhere east of their own alphabet. The name has been worn by queens, saints, suffragists, and Margaret Atwood, each reshaping it slightly in her passage. It held a place in the U.S. top 20 from 1880 through the 1950s, slipped through the middle of the century, and has steadily returned in the 2010s and 2020s alongside other grandmother-chic revivals. Three syllables open into a surprisingly generous nickname vault: Maggie, Meg, Greta, Peggy, Daisy. Margaret reads as substantial, a little stately, with enough history to anchor any century.