BabyNameScore

Name profile

Maeve

feminine

91First-name usabilityHighly workable
Evidence coverageHigh

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Irish, an anglicized form of Medb (Old Irish), the name of the legendary Queen of Connacht in the Ulster Cycle of Irish mythology.

Why it works

  • English speakers will almost certainly pronounce it correctly on the first try
  • spelling is short and predictable — rarely needs repeating

What to know

pronunciation varies somewhat by language — see "How it travels" for the specifics

Popularity

Familiar — #76 in the latest U.S. ranking.

Meaning and origin

Maeve means '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.

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.

Documented origin: Irish, an anglicized form of Medb (Old Irish), the name of the legendary Queen of Connacht in the Ulster Cycle of Irish mythology.

Well supportedTraced to a root word or element rather than a single, direct historical gloss.

How it travels

English and Turkish are shown by default; German is included when it adds a meaningfully different reading.

EnglishMAYV (/meɪv/, rhymes with 'wave') — Irish/US/UK Englishresearched pronunciation
TurkishEnglish reading conventions often soften or drop a trailing "-e"; Turkish is pronounced letter-by-letter, so Turkish speakers are likely to voice that final syllable clearly where English speakers may not.deterministic phonetic analysis
GermanEnglish reading conventions often soften or drop a trailing "-e"; German is pronounced letter-by-letter, so German speakers are likely to voice that final syllable clearly where English speakers may not.deterministic phonetic analysis

Spelling stability: high — based on letter-pattern analysis, not a documented linguistic fact.

Also documented

MAYV

occasionally mis-said as MEEV or MAY-veh by unfamiliar readers of the spelling

Popularity without panic

Familiar — #76 in the latest U.S. ranking.

Familiar enough to feel established, distinctive enough to stand out.

Full-name check

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Real-world considerations

  • Familiar — #76 in the latest U.S. ranking.
  • Spelling note: Confusable with the Irish-language forms Méabh, Meadhbh, and Maedhbh, and with the informal anglicized spellings Mave/Meave..
  • 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.
Explore alternatives
Méabh

Documented as a related name or variant form.

Meadhbh

Documented as a related name or variant form.

Medb

Documented as a related name or variant form.