Fergus

Meaning of Fergus

Fergus, a name rooted in the Old Irish elements fer (“man”) and gus (“vigor”), conveys a sense of “vir fortis” that has echoed through the annals of Celtic lore—from the storied exploits of Fergus Mór in the annals of Alba to the epic sagas of the Ulster Cycle—imbuing its bearers with an ancestral mantle of strength and resolve. While its phonetic contours retain a graceful uniformity across Scottish Gaelic (/ˈfɛrɡəs/) and English (/ˈfɜrɡəs/), Fergus’s true distinction lies in its steady, if modest, presence among American newborns: in 2024 it appeared 23 times at rank 901, reflecting a pattern that, since mid-20th-century peaks and troughs, has hovered between the high 600s and low 900s. This persistent, nearly centennial thread in U.S. naming charts suggests an analytical portrait of revival rather than renaissance—a deliberate choice by parents seeking to conjure, in a single syllable, the whisper of mist-laden glens, the weight of clan heritage and a quietly unwavering vigor.