Magdaline
Feminine · “from Magdala”
Magdaline comes from a place, and the place was named for a tower. Magdala was a fishing town on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, its name is built on the Aramaic and Hebrew word for a tower, and the woman the name belongs to is identified by where she came from rather than by whose daughter or wife she was, which is unusual in that text.
How old is the name Magdaline?
Magdaline first appears in US birth records in 1904 — 121 years ago. The typical Magdaline alive today was born around 1940, making them about 85 years old. About 600 people named Magdaline are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Magdaline most popular?
Magdaline peaked in 1913, reaching #1229 nationally. See the whole 1913 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From A Galilean town named for a tower to Magdaline
The story of Magdaline
The identification matters more than it looks. Women in that text are usually named in relation to a man: somebody's wife, somebody's mother, somebody's daughter. This one is named for her town, which puts her in the same grammatical position as the men who are identified that way, and it has been read by scholars as a sign of independent standing. The town itself was a fishing and salting center with a substantial trade, excavated in recent decades, and the tower in its name is probably a real structure rather than a metaphor. None of the later accretions to her reputation, which were considerable and mostly wrong, are in the text at all.
Meaning
from Magdala
The name is a place-of-origin description rather than a personal name: it identifies the town, whose own name means a tower. The reading is settled. The -ine ending on this spelling is a French and English suffix substituted for the original ending, which moves the name into a different family on the page without changing anything about the source.
How the name formed
- A Galilean town named for a tower
- A woman identified by her town rather than by a man
- Magdalene and Madeline across Europe
- Magdaline, with a French ending substituted
Related forms: Madeleine · Magdalena · Magdalena
Pronouncing Magdaline
MAG-duh-line
Three syllables, stress on the first, with the ending rhyming with line. The -ene spelling of the same name ends in een instead, so the two are audibly different names rather than variants.
Nicknames for Magdaline
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
- 1904
- Most girls named
- 192035 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1229reached in 1913
- Change vs 2022
- +20.0%6 in 2024, from 5
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.
Magdaline in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Madeleine in French — related form
- Magdalena in German — related form
- Magdalena in Spanish — related form
Magdalines among us
people named Magdaline 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
Magdaline 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
- Maggie and Lena are two complete names available from one certificate.
- It carries a genuine place with a documented history and recent excavation.
- The rhythm is long and the name is easy to say correctly.
- Magdalene and Magdalena are both commoner and this will be converted into one.
- The ending is read two ways depending on which spelling people think they see.
- The associations attached to the name over the centuries are mostly not in the text.
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Magdaline
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Magdalines 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 Magdaline are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Magdaline in 2025?
- Magdaline is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Magdaline with classmates?
- Magdaline 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 Magdaline? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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