Regan (given name)

PronunciationEnglish: /rɛɡən/; English: /riːɡən/

GenderUnisex

LanguageIrish

Meaningdescendant of Riagán

Regan

Goneril and Regan from King Lear by Edwin Austin Abbey.
Pronunciation	English: /rɛɡən/; English: /riːɡən/
Gender	Unisex
Language	Irish
Origin
Meaning	descendant of Riagán
Other names
Related names	Reagan

Regan is a unisex given name with multiple origins. It is a transferred use of the Irish surnames Regan and Reagan, which are Anglicized forms of Ó Riagáin, meaning 'descendant of Riagán', a name of uncertain meaning.^[1] Use for girls was influenced by a character in William Shakespeare’s tragic play King Lear.^[2] Regan was more commonly used for males in the Anglosphere in the 1800s. It came into occasional use for girls in the United States in the late 1940s. Usage of the name for American girls doubled after it was used for a character in the 1973 American supernatural horror film The Exorcist. The name was ranked among the top 1,000 names for American girls for the first time in 1974. Along with Reagan, the name dropped in popularity during the presidency of United States president Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, when it was out of fashion to name children after presidents. The names Regan and Reagan, along with phonetic spelling variants such as Raegan and Raygan, all increased in use during the 1990s and remain in regular use for both boys and girls. In some instances, the name might have been seen as a less popular alternative to the name Megan.^[3]