BabyNameScore

Maeve

MAYV · 1 syllable

Maeve is comfortably familiar.

91/100

Strong Practical Fit

Balanced across pronunciation, everyday use, lifetime fit and international use.

Name Profile

  1. Pronunciation & Spelling

    Clear, with one common misreading

    A documented English pronunciation is on file: MAYV (/meɪv/, rhymes with 'wave'). Occasionally mispronounced as 'MEEV' or read with a spelled-out two-syllable guess ('MAY-veh') by readers unfamiliar with the Irish-derived spelling; correct English rendering is a single syllable, MAYV.

    91/100

  2. Everyday Use

    Low risk

    95/100

  3. Growing Up

    Strong lifetime fit

    Works comfortably across child and adult settings.

    82/100

  4. International Use

    Broad international fit

    Works cleanly across the assessed languages and writing systems.

    85/100

NAME DETAILS

CLOSE SPELLINGS
Maev
Mave
Meave
Maève
ORIGIN & HISTORY

About the name

Maeve is the English-spelling form of a name with a continuous, well-documented run through Irish linguistic history: Medb in Old Irish, Meḋḃ in Middle Irish, and Meadhbh/Maedhbh in Early Modern Irish, arriving at Méabh in current Irish. Its most famous bearer, Queen Medb of Connacht, is the central figure of the Táin Bó Cúailnge ('The Cattle Raid of Cooley'), the great epic of the Ulster Cycle, in which she wages war on Ulster to acquire a prize bull to match her husband's, and clashes repeatedly with the hero Cú Chulainn. Scholars of Irish mythology have long read Medb as more than a historical or literary queen — a personification of the sovereignty of the land itself, tied to the ritual role of mead in inaugurating Irish kings (a sovereignty goddess figure offers the drink; accepting it confers the kingship). The English spelling 'Maeve' is a 19th/20th-century anglicization that made the name accessible to English readers while the Irish-language forms (Méabh, Meadhbh) remained in parallel use in Ireland. The 'intoxicating'/'mead-woman' gloss is a scholarly reconstruction from Proto-Celtic roots rather than a directly attested dictionary definition recorded at the time the name was coined; it is widely repeated across both academic-adjacent and popular sources but rests on etymological inference about a prehistoric root, not a surviving contemporary gloss from Old Irish scribes. The 'she who rules' variant reading is less frequently cited and should be treated as a secondary, lower-confidence gloss rather than the primary meaning.

  1. Medb (Old Irish); Méabh / Meadhbh (Modern Irish). 'She who intoxicates' / 'the intoxicating one' (from the mead root), sometimes extended to 'she who rules,' reflecting the mythological Queen Medb's role as a sovereignty figure in the Ulster Cycle.
  2. Mythological and religious contextCentral figure of the Ulster Cycle of Irish mythology; Queen Medb of Connacht is the instigator of the Táin Bó Cúailnge and is widely interpreted by scholars as connected to a sovereignty-goddess archetype tied to the ritual conferral of Irish kingship via mead.
POPULARITY

Maeve over time

United States
#76RANK

Rank #76 gives national context, not a classroom forecast.

Recognizable without feeling automatic. Ranked #76 in the U.S., 2025.

SourceU.S. Social Security Administration · 2025 release

Pronunciation & Forms

SAY IT

MAYV

CLOSE SPELLINGS
  • Maev
  • Mave
  • Meave
  • Maève
OTHER-LANGUAGE FORMS
  • MéabhModern Irish
  • Meadhbh / MaedhbhEarly Modern Irish
  • MedbOld Irish
  • MeḋḃMiddle Irish orthography
PRACTICAL LIFE

How This Name Lives

AT SCHOOL & DAY TO DAY

Short, easily said, and distinctive for a child without an obvious playground nickname culture built up around it.

INTO ADULTHOOD

Carries well into adulthood as a strong, literary, single-syllable name that reads as distinctive without being difficult to say once learned.

Cultural Footprint

In Ireland, understood as a name with deep literary/mythological roots (Ulster Cycle) rather than a purely modern coinage; internationally, increasingly chosen as part of a broader 2010s-2020s fashion for Irish/Celtic mythological names.

TRACEABLE ORIGIN
  1. Queen Medb/Méabh of ConnachtUlster Cycle, Táin Bó Cúailnge

Community Impressions

Carries the specific literary weight of Queen Medb of Connacht, the cattle-raiding antagonist-queen of the Táin Bó Cúailnge who goes to war with Ulster over a bull, rather than a generic 'strong woman' association — parents drawn to the mythological depth are typically choosing a name tied to one particular, well-documented epic queen, not an abstract virtue word.

How this name is commonly received · not used in the score

More about Maeve

FORMALITY

Already complete and formal-sounding as a single unit; not commonly shortened further, so functions the same in both formal and informal registers.

EDITORIAL SYNTHESIS

The Decision

Maeve is spelled without unusual letter patterns, and it holds up in everyday use. Surname-dependent compatibility remains unassessed until a surname is added.

STRENGTH

A documented English pronunciation is on file. Uses standard characters that systems widely handle cleanly.

BEST FIT

Everyday Use is the strongest-scoring part of this name — no obvious nickname traps, rhymes, or initial issues detected.

FULL-NAME CHECK

See how it works with a surname.

Maeve