Maddox
Masculine · “Son of Madog”
Maddox is given to both — 47,119 boys and 1,825 girls since 1880. See Maddox as a girl nameSee other names given to both
Maddox began as a Welsh surname — a family carried through the border counties by a father named Madog, and pared down over centuries to a single hard-edged word. It has the shape English gives its most durable short names: a stressed first syllable, then the clean click of the x. Names built this way, Knox and Felix and Max among them, tend to keep their footing.
How old is the name Maddox?
Maddox first appears in US birth records in 1995 — 30 years ago. The typical Maddox is a kid of about 10 — this name's wave is very recent. About 46,500 people named Maddox are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Maddox most popular?
Maddox peaked in 2017, reaching #136 nationally. Today it ranks #209, 73 places below that high. See the whole 2017 chart.
Where it comes from
From Madog to Maddox
The story of Maddox
The root is the medieval Welsh personal name Madog, borne by princes of Powys and Gwynedd — Madog ap Maredudd, who ruled Powys in the twelfth century, is the best documented of them. Welsh naming worked by patronymic, so a man could be known as ap Madog, son of Madog, and when fixed surnames took hold along the English border those phrases hardened into Maddocks, Maddock and Maddox. For most of its life it was a family name, common in Wales and the Marches and carried from there to America. Its turn as a first name is recent: it moved from surname to given name in the late twentieth century, and a widely reported celebrity baby in the early 2000s accelerated what was already under way.
Meaning
Son of Madog — Madog from the Welsh 'mad', fortunate or good
Madog joins the Welsh element 'mad' (fortunate, benevolent) with the suffix -og. The surname form comes from 'ap Madog', son of Madog, which English flattened into Maddocks and Maddox.
How the name formed
- Madog
- Madoc
- ap Madog
- Maddocks
- Maddox
Related forms: Madog · Madoc · Maddock · Maddocks · Maddix · Madox
Pronouncing Maddox
MAD-ux
Two syllables, stress on the first, with the x sounded as a clean 'ks'. English speakers get it right on sight; the older Welsh Madog is said MAD-og, with a hard g.
Nicknames for Maddox
High
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
- 1995
- Most boys named
- 20173,044 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #136reached in 2017
- Change vs 2024
- −0.2%1,664 in 2025, from 1,668
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.
Maddox in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Madog in Welsh — same name
- Madoc in Welsh — spelling variant
- Maddock in English — related form
- Maddocks in English — related form
- Maddix in English — spelling variant
- Madox in English — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, California, Florida.
Maddoxs among us
people named Maddox are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 1,026 born in 2025 was named Maddox
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Kent test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Maddox's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Kent climbed just as high around 1962, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Kent's path sketches the road Maddox is walking now.
Maddox 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
Where Maddox is headed
Maddox is easing off slowly — about 16% fewer babies a year by 2030 if the trend continues.
High confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Maddox beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Maddox in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Spelled the way it sounds for English speakers — almost no one has to ask twice how to say it.
- Comes with Max ready-made as a short form, a name that stands perfectly well on its own.
- A documented Welsh line behind it, running from the medieval personal name Madog through the surnames Maddock and Maddocks.
- Distinctive without being unfamiliar: most people have met the surname even if they've never met a boy with it.
- Shares its ending with an established family of English boys' names — Knox, Felix, Max — so it sits easily beside them.
- The variants Maddix, Maddax and Madox all exist, so expect an occasional 'how do you spell it' even though the sound is obvious.
- Its rise as a first name is genuinely recent, which means a Maddox in his fifties is a rare thing. It reads as a name of one particular generation, and that may or may not matter to you.
- Shortened all the way down, it becomes 'Mad' — a small opening for teasing that most boys close quickly by preferring Max.
- Recorded almost entirely for boys in the US, so a girl named Maddox would be doing something unusual rather than joining an existing pattern.
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What they receive
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Maddox
Masculine · #209 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Maddoxs are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 46,500 people named Maddox are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Maddox in 2025?
- Maddox ranks #209 among US boy names in 2025, with 1,664 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Maddox?
- About 1 in every 1,026 US boys born in 2025 was named Maddox — 1,664 in all.
- Will my child share the name Maddox with classmates?
- Maddox will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Maddox
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Victor#209 · Abraham#209 · Riley#207 · Messiah#207 · Miguel#212 · Finn#206 · Camden#205 · Zayden#213
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Maddox? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Maddox and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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