“She who intoxicates,” or, perhaps, “the ruler” Two readings
Traditional meaning: “she who intoxicates.” Maeve is the anglicised form of the Old Irish Medb. It's most often traced to a Proto-Celtic root for mead (*medu- / *medua-, “intoxicating”), giving the wonderfully evocative reading “mead-woman” or “she who intoxicates.”1
A second scholarly reading derives it instead from *medwa, “the ruler,” which fits its legendary owner just as well. Both are defensible, so we show both rather than pick a false-certain winner.2
Pronunciation & spelling
Say “MAYV,” but the Irish forms shift
Say it
MAYV, one syllable, rhymes with “save.”
Old Irish
Medb
Modern Irish
Méabh · Meadhbh
Anglicised
Maeve (the spelling that travelled into English) · also Maev
The leap from Meadhbh to Maeve is exactly the kind of Irish-to-English re-spelling that trips people up, which is part of the name's quiet appeal: it looks simple, but it carries a much older shape underneath.
Mythology
The warrior queen of Connacht
Medb is the formidable Queen of Connacht in the Ulster Cycle of Irish mythology, the figure who launches the great epic Táin Bó Cúailnge, the “Cattle Raid of Cooley,” to seize Ulster's prize bull. She is proud, warlike and utterly her own ruler.3
Scholars read her as more than a queen. Since Tomás Ó Máille's 1928 study, Medb has been understood as a sovereignty goddess: in early Ireland a king was symbolically “married” to the land, and the ritual drinking of mead sealed his inauguration, tying her name's meaning straight back to kingship and the right to rule.2
“What is your name?” said Medb to the maiden. “Fedelm, the prophetess of Connaught, is my name,” said the maiden.Maeve consults the prophetess before the Táin; Lady Augusta Gregory, Cuchulain of Muirthemne (1902) public domain
Popularity over time
Long rare, now rising fast
2025 · 3,1533,1530
19402025
U.S. · 1940–2025 · counts of people issued a Social Security number, not a full count of births. Live series on the published page.
Outside Ireland, Maeve was long a rarity. Over the past two decades it has climbed sharply, carried by the wider love of short, strong, lyrical Irish names that feel both ancient and fresh.
Usage & existence
How often is Maeve recorded?
29,608
recorded use · U.S. since 1940
Rising
active & growing
~100% girls
gender usage
1940
first appears in the data
Most of Maeve's recorded use is recent. It counts recorded uses in US SSA data, not living people. The dataset begins in 1880, but Maeve barely appears before the 1990s and only then settles into steady use, so its footprint is modest but climbing, not a sign of long continuous use. The living figure above is an estimate built from these records and official life tables: how we estimate it.
Notable use · compactThe name's defining bearer is the legendary Queen Medb (above). In the modern world its best-known bearer is the bestselling Irish novelist Maeve Binchy. (With its central figure mythological rather than historical, Maeve shows this compact note rather than a full real-world bearer grid.)
The honest verdict
Our call · subjective
Short, complete, and hard to get wrong. Our favourite kind of riser: growing because it works, not because a show aired.
How rare is your Maeve?
See exactly how many share the name in your country and birth year, with real data.
Sources & how we verify ✓ 2+ independent · verified Jun 2026 · data refreshed Jun 2026
Meaning & etymology
Proto-Celtic *medu- “mead”: Ranko Matasović, Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Celtic (Brill, 2009), s.v. *medu-. Celtic etymology paraphrased from modern references, not Victorian sources.
The “ruler” reading and the sovereignty-goddess interpretation: Tomás Ó Máille, “Medb Cruachna,” Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie 17 (1928), pp. 129–146. Flagged as a two-reading etymology rather than asserting one.
Popularity data
US SSA · England & Wales ONS, SSN-issuance / registration counts in the dataset, not total births.
Mythology
The Ulster Cycle / Táin Bó Cúailnge, public-domain rendering: Lady Augusta Gregory, Cuchulain of Muirthemne (1902) public domain.
Meaning carries a Two readings label because the etymology is genuinely split between “intoxicating” and “ruler.” A public-domain source is quoted verbatim for the mythology; Celtic etymology, a known high-error area, is paraphrased from named modern scholarship (Matasović 2009; Ó Máille 1928), not Victorian sources. Anglicised and Irish spellings are counted separately, never merged.