Raegan

The Irish Ó Riagáin points toward little king, a clan name from a time when chieftains were titled on the land and the name passed through families like a property marker. Reagan became the anglicized spelling; Raegan is the softer American variant, the ae slowing the name down visually, giving it a calligraphic quality that steers it firmly toward the girls' chart where it now lives almost exclusively.

No single famous Raegan commands the ae spelling above others, leaving it clean and contemporary. At rank 458, Raegan runs with the Addisons and Harpers in the quietly dominant tradition of Irish surnames turned American first names — names that carry just enough old-world authority to feel serious without requiring anyone to know the genealogy.

Two syllables, one long vowel doing most of the work — RAY-gan — clean and decisive, the kind of name that reads well in any font. It pairs easily with names in the same register: Raegan Kira, Raegan Emmy, Raegan Bianca. The girl who gets this name tends to be quietly in charge of things — the one who organizes the group project without being assigned to do so, who knows which decision needs to be made before anyone else has noticed there is a decision to be made.