Reagan has 64,480 cumulative American girls on SSA record and currently sits at rank 244, with a 2016 peak that placed it inside the top 100. The chart history began in earnest in the late 1990s, climbed steadily through the 2000s and 2010s, and has been in slight descent since the 2016 peak. The trajectory tracks closely with the broader Irish-surname-on-girls cluster of the past two decades.
The Irish surname source
Reagan comes from the Irish surname O Riagain, an Anglicization of the Gaelic name based on riagan, possibly meaning "little king" or "impulsive." The clan was associated with County Meath in medieval Ireland, and the surname spread through Irish emigration to the United States and Britain in the 19th century. The shift from surname to first name on girls accelerated in the 1990s and 2000s on the broader Irish-surname trend that also produced Kennedy, Riley, and Delaney.
President Ronald Reagan (1911-2004) and First Lady Nancy Reagan (1921-2016) gave the surname its highest-visibility 20th-century American profile, though the political association is generally treated as neutral or coincidental rather than driving the modern naming use.
The Irish-surname-on-girls cohort
Reagan travels with a recognizable cluster of Irish surnames that moved onto American girls in the 1990s and 2000s: Kennedy, Riley, Delaney, Finley, and Quinn share the structure. The cluster reads confident, slightly preppy, and recognizably American, with the three-syllable Reagan (RAY-gan) sitting at the slightly more formal end of the group.
Pop-culture lift came from television character bearers including Regan MacNeil from The Exorcist (1973), though the spelling there is different. More recent positive cultural anchors include the Republic-of-Ireland-influenced naming scene and various American actresses and cultural figures named Reagan in the 2000s and 2010s. The cluster's collective momentum supported Reagan's climb without the name needing a single dominant celebrity transmission of its own.
The counter-reading
The honest concern with Reagan is the political association. The name carries enough connection to the Reagan presidency that some bearers will field the question for life, particularly in politically engaged households or workplaces. Parents picking Reagan should be comfortable with that ongoing association, even when the actual naming inspiration is purely sound or heritage rather than political.
Sibling pairings lean Irish-American: Reagan and Kennedy, Reagan and Riley, Reagan and Quinn. Middle names tend short and traditional: Reagan Rose, Reagan Jane, Reagan Kate. Browse Irish-origin girl names for the broader cluster.