Madeleine
Feminine · “from Magdala”
Madeleine is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 45,722 girls against 15 boys since 1880.
Madeleine is the French shape of a name carried out of a small fishing town on the Sea of Galilee and into nearly every language of Christian Europe. The French kept the soft ending, gave a shell-shaped tea cake the same name, and English speakers have been saying it three ways ever since — MAD-uh-lin, MAD-uh-line, mad-LEN — all of them accepted.
How old is the name Madeleine?
Madeleine first appears in US birth records in 1881 — 144 years ago. The typical Madeleine alive today was born around 2002, making them about 23 years old. About 39,000 people named Madeleine are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Madeleine most popular?
Madeleine peaked in 1998, reaching #217 nationally. Today it ranks #454, 237 places below that high. See the whole 1998 chart.
Madeleine appears on these lists:
Where it comes from
From Magdala to Madeleine
The story of Madeleine
The name begins as an epithet rather than a name: Mary of Magdala, distinguished in the Gospels from the other Marys by where she came from. Greek rendered it Magdalēnē, Latin Magdalena, and from Latin the French wore it down to Madeleine, dropping the g and softening the ending. Medieval England borrowed it too and pronounced it so loosely that Magdalen College, Oxford, is still said MAUD-lin, and the English word maudlin descends from the same slurring. The French form later attached itself to the small shell-shaped cake and to the Paris church of La Madeleine, which is why the spelling with -eine reads as distinctly French even in English-speaking countries.
Meaning
from Magdala — a town on the Sea of Galilee
The place name itself comes from a Semitic root meaning tower; Madeleine names the town, not the tower directly.
How the name formed
- Magdala
- Magdalēnē
- Magdalena
- Madeleine
- Madeline
Related forms: Madeleine · Magdalena · Maddalena · Madeline · Magdolna · Магдалина (Magdalina)
Pronouncing Madeleine
MAD-uh-lin
Also said MAD-uh-line in the US, and mad-LEN in French. All three are in genuine use, so it is worth deciding early which one you will correct people toward.
Nicknames for Madeleine
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
- 1881
- Most girls named
- 20071,163 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #217reached in 1998
- Change vs 2022
- −17.2%679 in 2025, from 820
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.
Madeleine in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Madeleine in French — same name
- Magdalena in Spanish — same name
- Maddalena in Italian — same name
- Madeline in English — spelling variant
- Magdolna in Hungarian — same name
- Магдалина (Magdalina) in Russian — transliteration
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, New York.
Madeleines among us
people named Madeleine are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 2,367 born in 2025 was named Madeleine
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 Francine test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Madeleine's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Francine climbed just as high around 1946, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Francine's path sketches the road Madeleine is walking now.
Madeleine 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 Madeleine is headed
Madeleine should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
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.
Madeleine beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Madeleine in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Recognizable in French, Spanish, Italian, German and Polish through its close cousins Madeleine, Magdalena and Maddalena.
- A documented line running from the Gospels through medieval Latin and French to the present, with no gap.
- Familiar to nearly everyone without being crowded — most classrooms will have just the one.
- Comes with ready-made short forms, from the very common Maddie to the quieter Lena.
- The full name reads formal on paper while the nickname handles everything casual.
- The -eine ending will be respelled Madeline or Madelyn by people writing it down for the rest of her life. Most Madeleines learn to spell it aloud without thinking about it.
- Three pronunciations circulate in English and none is wrong, so she will hear all of them and choose her own.
- Maddie is shared with Madison, Madelyn and Madeline, so the nickname is considerably more common in a schoolyard than the full name is.
- In French the same word means a small tea cake — charming to some ears, a running joke to others.
Nobody names a baby alone.
Put Madeleine to the vote.
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What they receive
Someone added a name to your list
Madeleine
Feminine · #454 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Madeleines are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 39,000 people named Madeleine are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Madeleine in 2025?
- Madeleine ranks #454 among US girl names in 2025, with 679 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Madeleine?
- About 1 in every 2,367 US girls born in 2025 was named Madeleine — 679 in all.
- Will my child share the name Madeleine with classmates?
- Madeleine will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Madeleine
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Carter#454 · Alyssa#453 · Wynter#456 · Clementine#456 · Calliope#451 · Reign#451 · Elisa#458 · Kataleya#458
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Madeleine? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Madeleine and another name?
See them side by side — full stats, history and a gentle verdict.
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Cast your vote
Which one would you pick?
Your gut first, the numbers after — the split shows once you pick.
US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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