Maddi
Feminine
Maddi is a nickname that stopped going home. Madeline, Madison and Madelyn all shorten to Maddie, and once a short form is attached to three separate top-100 names it becomes more common than any of them — at which point families start giving it directly, with the ending trimmed to a single i to mark that it is meant as the whole name.
How old is the name Maddi?
Maddi first appears in US birth records in 1987 — 38 years ago. The typical Maddi alive today was born around 2011, making them about 14 years old. About 600 people named Maddi are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Maddi most popular?
Maddi peaked in 2013, reaching #4755 nationally. Today it ranks #6838, 2,083 places below that high. See the whole 2013 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Magdalene to Maddi
The story of Maddi
The -ie ending is the standard English diminutive: Maggie, Katie, Sadie, Maddie. The bare -i ending is a twentieth-century American development that signals something different — not a pet form but a name in its own right, in the pattern of Jodi, Toni, Traci and Lori. Choosing Maddi over Maddie is therefore a small piece of grammar: it says the name is not short for anything. That the SSA records it separately at all, peaking in 2013, shows the strategy is working at a real if modest scale.
Meaningscholars disagree
Depends on the parent name: "of Magdala" or "son of Maud"
Madeline is from Magdalene, meaning a woman of Magdala, a town on the Sea of Galilee whose name relates to a word for tower. Madison is an English surname meaning "son of Maud" or "son of Matthew". Maddi shortens both, and as a stand-alone name it inherits whichever parent the family had in mind — or neither.
How the name formed
- Magdalene
- Madeline
- Maddie
- Maddi
Related forms: Madeleine · Magdalena
Pronouncing Maddi
MAD-ee
Two syllables, stress on the first, with the doubled d guarding the short A — without it the name would read as MAY-dee. Identical in sound to Maddie and Maddy.
Nicknames for Maddi
Moderate
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1987
- Most girls named
- 200829 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #4755reached in 2013
- Change vs 2024
- +14.3%16 in 2025, from 14
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Maddi in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Madeleine in French — related form
- Magdalena in German — related form
Maddis among us
people named Maddi are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 100,454 born in 2025 was named Maddi
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Maddi
- #6838
- Maddi on the 2025 chart
- #867
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Maddi went to 16 girls in 2025, but Maddy, Madi and Mady are the same name said out loud. Together the 4 spellings went to 93, which makes it the 867th most-given girls’ name of the year — 5,971 places above the chart.
About 1 girl in 17,282 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 100,454 for Maddi itself.
Spellings are grouped by a fixed rule that folds interchangeable English spellings of one sound (ck/k, ph/f, x/ks, a non-initial y for i) and keeps vowels apart, so Sean and Shawn stay separate names. It errs towards splitting: a family here is never larger than the truth. SSA national data, 2025. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Zoraya test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Maddi's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Zoraya climbed just as high around 1970, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Zoraya's path sketches the road Maddi is walking now.
Maddi sits in the calm middle of the cycle — neither chasing a wave nor sliding off one. Middle-of-the-cycle names age slowly and predictably.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Maddi beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Maddi in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- It is instantly familiar to everyone while remaining rare as a legal name.
- It is short, warm and requires no explanation.
- It carries a connection to Madeline and Madison without committing to either.
- Maddie is far more common and will be written by default.
- A nickname as a legal name can feel informal in professional contexts later on.
- There is no longer form to fall back on unless one is chosen separately.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Maddi
Feminine · #6838 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Maddis are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 600 people named Maddi are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Maddi?
- Maddi is one of 4 recorded spellings. Maddy is the more common one — 39 births in 2025 against 16 for Maddi.
- How popular is the name Maddi in 2025?
- Maddi ranks #6838 among US girl names in 2025, with 16 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Maddi?
- About 1 in every 100,454 US girls born in 2025 was named Maddi — 16 in all.
- Will my child share the name Maddi with classmates?
- Maddi will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Maddi
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Malana#6838 · Jeannie#6838 · Maxie#6838 · Nicol#6838 · Chaney#6838 · Keana#6838 · Concetta#6838 · Pheobe#6838
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Maddi? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Maddi and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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