Madilynn
Feminine · “of Magdala”
Behind this spelling stands one of the oldest names in continuous Christian use: Magdalene, meaning a woman from Magdala, a fishing town on the Sea of Galilee. English mouths softened it to Maudlin, French ones smoothed it to Madeleine, and American parents eventually rebuilt it letter by letter into Madilynn. Four syllables that everyone can read at a glance, with Maddie waiting inside.
How old is the name Madilynn?
Madilynn first appears in US birth records in 1987 — 38 years ago. The typical Madilynn is a kid of about 11 — this name's wave is very recent. About 11,500 people named Madilynn are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Madilynn most popular?
Madilynn peaked in 2014, reaching #479 nationally. Today it ranks #859, 380 places below that high. See the whole 2014 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Magdalene to Madilynn
The story of Madilynn
The Gospels name Mary Magdalene — Maria hē Magdalēnē in Greek — meaning Mary of Magdala, a town on the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee. Her name traveled across medieval Europe as Magdalena, and Old French wore it down to Madeleine; Middle English speakers said it as Maudelen, which is why Magdalen College in Oxford is still pronounced 'maudlin' and why the English word maudlin exists at all. American English later respelled Madeline as Madelyn, treating the ending as the familiar Lynn. Madilynn is the next step along that same road, with an i in the middle and a doubled n at the end — part of a wave of -lynn respellings that took hold in the United States in recent decades.
Meaning
of Magdala — from a town on the Sea of Galilee
The Aramaic place name Magdala is generally read as 'tower'. The -lynn ending is a modern English reshaping of the older -line/-lene, echoing the standalone name Lynn.
How the name formed
- Magdalene
- Madeleine
- Madeline
- Madelyn
- Madilynn
Related forms: Madeleine · Magdalena · Maddalena · Magdalena · Magdalena · Malin
Pronouncing Madilynn
MAD-ih-lin
Stress on the first syllable. Some families say MAD-uh-lin; both are heard, and neither needs correcting. The French Madeleine, by contrast, ends in a nasal -en sound.
Nicknames for Madilynn
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
- 1987
- Most girls named
- 2014656 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #479reached in 2014
- Change vs 2024
- −12.3%315 in 2025, from 359
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.
Madilynn in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Madeleine in French — related form
- Magdalena in Spanish — related form
- Maddalena in Italian — related form
- Magdalena in German — related form
- Magdalena in Polish — related form
- Malin in Swedish — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, California, Ohio.
Madilynns among us
people named Madilynn are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 5,102 born in 2025 was named Madilynn
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Madilynn
- #859
- Madilynn on the 2025 chart
- #308
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Madilynn went to 315 girls in 2025, but Madilyn, Maddilyn and Maddilynn are the same name said out loud. Together the 4 spellings went to 1,020, which makes it the 308th most-given girls’ name of the year — 551 places above the chart.
About 1 girl in 1,576 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 5,102 for Madilynn 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 Vernell test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Madilynn's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Vernell climbed just as high around 1935, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Vernell's path sketches the road Madilynn is walking now.
Madilynn 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 Madilynn is headed
Madilynn is easing off slowly — about 20% fewer babies a year by 2030 if the trend continues.
Medium 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.
Madilynn beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Madilynn in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Reads correctly on first sight for English speakers — no one hesitates over how to say it.
- Comes with Maddie already attached, a short form used for this family of names for generations.
- Sits on a documented line running back through Madeline and Madeleine to the Gospels, so it has depth behind a modern surface.
- Its relatives — Magdalena, Maddalena, Malin — are recognizable across much of Europe, which helps when family is spread wide.
- Common enough to be familiar, rare enough in this exact spelling that a classroom duplicate is unlikely.
- The spelling will need saying out loud, letter by letter, fairly often. Madeline, Madelyn, Madilyn, Madalynn and Madelynn all sound near-identical, and people default to the ones they know best.
- Maddie is shared territory. Between the Madelines, Madisons and Madelyns, a Madilynn may well meet another Maddie even while being the only one with her full spelling.
- The -lynn respelling pattern belongs to a very recent stretch of American naming, so the spelling itself tends to signal roughly when someone was born — the classic Madeline does not.
- The name is stepping back from its high point rather than climbing, which means fewer of them each year among the youngest children.
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What they receive
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Madilynn
Feminine · #859 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Madilynns are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 11,500 people named Madilynn are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Madilynn?
- Madilynn is one of 4 recorded spellings. Madilyn is the more common one — 662 births in 2025 against 315 for Madilynn.
- How popular is the name Madilynn in 2025?
- Madilynn ranks #859 among US girl names in 2025, with 315 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Madilynn?
- About 1 in every 5,102 US girls born in 2025 was named Madilynn — 315 in all.
- Will my child share the name Madilynn with classmates?
- Madilynn will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Madilynn
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Lilia#859 · Darcy#857 · Jamie#857 · Haley#861 · Soraya#862 · Eleanora#862 · Mercy#862 · Nala#856
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Madilynn? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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