Madelyn
Feminine · “Of Magdala”
Madelyn is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 116,010 girls against 50 boys since 1880.
Madelyn is the American spelling of Madeline, which came into English from French Madeleine and, before that, Latin Magdalena — the name given to Mary Magdalene, a woman from the town of Magdala. The -lyn ending is a piece of plain English practicality: it settles the last syllable as "lin" and lets the whole name be read correctly at first sight.
How old is the name Madelyn?
Madelyn first appears in US birth records in 1890 — 135 years ago. The typical Madelyn alive today was born around 2011, making them about 14 years old. About 107,000 people named Madelyn are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Madelyn most popular?
Madelyn peaked in 2023, reaching #58 nationally. Today it ranks #70, 12 places below that high. See the whole 2023 chart.
Where it comes from
From Magdalene to Madelyn
The story of Madelyn
The line begins with Greek Magdalene in the New Testament, an epithet marking Mary as coming from Magdala. Latin turned it into Magdalena, and medieval French smoothed that into Madeleine, which English speakers borrowed and respelled as Madeline. English also wore the name down in another direction entirely: because Mary Magdalene was so often painted weeping, the old English pronunciation of Magdalene gave the ordinary word "maudlin". Madelyn is the later American respelling of Madeline, and it has traveled widely across the country rather than clustering in one region.
Meaning
Of Magdala — a town on the Sea of Galilee
Magdala is generally traced to a Semitic root for "tower", so the underlying sense is roughly "the tower place", but the name itself functions as a place reference rather than a word for tower.
Cultural footprint
Madelyn Cline (b. 1997) — Outer Banks star
Source: Wikidata — the one source on this page that is not an official agency.
How the name formed
- Magdalene
- Magdalena
- Madeleine
- Madeline
- Madelyn
Related forms: Madeleine · Magdalena · Maddalena · Magdalena · Magdalena · Magdolna
Pronouncing Madelyn
MAD-uh-lin
Three syllables, stress on the first. The -lyn spelling exists precisely to head off the French-influenced MAD-uh-line or MAD-uh-leen you get with Madeleine, though someone who knows the French form may still reach for it once.
Nicknames for Madelyn
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
- 1890
- Most girls named
- 20084,567 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #58reached in 2023
- Change vs 2022
- −9.7%3,362 in 2025, from 3,724
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.
Madelyn in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Madeleine in French — same name
- Magdalena in Spanish — same name
- Maddalena in Italian — same name
- Magdalena in German — same name
- Magdalena in Polish — same name
- Magdolna in Hungarian — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, California, New York.
Madelyns among us
people named Madelyn are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 478 born in 2025 was named Madelyn
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Madelyn
- #70
- Madelyn on the 2025 chart
- #65
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Madelyn went to 3,362 girls in 2025, but Madelynn and Madelin are the same name said out loud. Together the 5 spellings went to 4,032, which makes it the 65th most-given girls’ name of the year — 5 places above the chart.
and 2 rarer spellings.
About 1 girl in 399 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 478 for Madelyn 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 Ellen test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Madelyn's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Ellen climbed just as high around 1946, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Ellen's path sketches the road Madelyn is walking now.
Madelyn 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 Madelyn is headed
Madelyn 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.
Madelyn beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Madelyn in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Maddie is a ready-made short form with a long track record, so the name works in both formal and casual registers without any effort.
- The spelling tells the reader the pronunciation, which the French Madeleine does not.
- A documented ancestry running from Greek through Latin and French into English — one continuous line rather than a guess.
- Recognizable in Spanish, Italian, German, Polish and French through Magdalena, Maddalena and Madeleine.
- Used steadily across generations rather than spiking and vanishing, and spread broadly across the country.
- Madeline, Madelyn, Madilyn, Madalyn and Madeleine all coexist, so expect to spell it aloud fairly often and to see it written the other way on forms.
- Maddie is shared with Madison, Madeline and Madelyn alike, so the nickname is far more crowded than the full name is.
- The -lyn ending places it with a broad family of recent respellings; if you want the older, more European look on paper, Madeleine or Magdalena is the same name.
- Anyone reaching for the French form will say MAD-uh-lane or MAD-uh-leen the first time — a small, easily corrected snag rather than a lasting one.
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What they receive
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Madelyn
Feminine · #70 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Madelyns are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 107,000 people named Madelyn are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Madelyn?
- Madelyn is the most-used spelling in US records — 3,362 of the 4,032 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Madelynn and Madelin.
- How popular is the name Madelyn in 2025?
- Madelyn ranks #70 among US girl names in 2025, with 3,362 babies given the name.
- How common is the name Madelyn?
- About 1 in every 478 US girls born in 2025 was named Madelyn — 3,362 in all.
- Will my child share the name Madelyn with classmates?
- Madelyn will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Madelyn
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Vivian#70 · Eden#70 · Zoey#69 · Claire#68 · Paisley#67 · Millie#73 · Genesis#66 · Emery#74
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Madelyn? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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