Madie
Feminine · “mighty in battle”
Maud and Matilda are the same name, and England fought a civil war over the woman who carried both. She was Matilda in Latin documents and Maud to everybody else, she never quite became queen, and the two spellings have been treated as separate names ever since.
How old is the name Madie?
Madie was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Madie alive today was born around 1921, making them about 104 years old. About 600 people named Madie are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Madie most popular?
Madie peaked in 1902, reaching #467 nationally. See the whole 1902 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Mathilda to Madie
The story of Madie
The Empress Matilda was Henry the First's only surviving legitimate child and his named heir, and when he died her cousin took the throne instead. The war that followed lasted nearly twenty years and was remembered as a time when, in the chronicler's phrase, Christ and his saints slept. She never was crowned; her son became Henry the Second, and the line she was denied ruled England for three centuries. Madie is a much later and much gentler thing: a nineteenth-century American familiar form that can be cut from Madeline, from Maud or from Magdalene, and that appears in the record from the first year of the count.
Meaning
mighty in battle
The Germanic compound joins a word for might to one for battle. Maud is the same name worn down in Norman French, which is why it looks unrelated.
How the name formed
- Mathilda
- Maud
- Madie
Pronouncing Madie
MAY-dee
Two syllables with the weight at the front. The single d gives a long first vowel; doubling it, as Maddie does, gives a short one, and the two are different names in speech.
Nicknames for Madie
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
- 1880
- Most girls named
- 1915103 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #467reached in 1902
- Change vs 2015
- −16.7%5 in 2018, from 6
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.
Madies among us
people named Madie are estimated to be alive in the US today
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Madie sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- It is said correctly at sight by anyone who reads English.
- It can serve as a short form for several long names, which gives a family options.
- It has an unbroken run in American records from the first year they were kept.
- Maddie is the modern spelling of a similar sound and will be written instead, though it is a different vowel.
- It reads as a familiar form, and formal settings will look for something longer.
- It belongs clearly to the nineteenth century.
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Madie
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Madies 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 Madie are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Madie in 2025?
- Madie is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Madie with classmates?
- Madie will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More M names
The most-given names starting with M, all years combined.
Mary#125 · Margaret#112 · Michelle#465 · Melissa#419 · Maria#87 · Martha#712 · Marie#617 · Mildred#1962
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Madie? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Madie and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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