Mateo
Masculine · “Gift of God”
Mateo is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 126,693 boys against 85 girls since 1880.
Mateo is the Spanish form of a name carried out of Hebrew, through Greek and Latin, and into nearly every language touched by Christianity. Three open vowels and a stress in the middle — mah-TAY-oh — give it a rhythm that works in Spanish and in English without adjustment. It has been written in Spain since the Middle Ages and turns up in this generation's kindergartens.
How old is the name Mateo?
Mateo first appears in US birth records in 1904 — 121 years ago. The typical Mateo is a kid of about 4 — this name's wave is very recent. About 125,000 people named Mateo are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Mateo most popular?
Mateo peaked in 2023, reaching #6 nationally. Today it ranks #8, 2 places below that high. See the whole 2023 chart.
Mateo appears on these lists:
- Distinctly American names
- America's top 100 names right now
- The top-10 club: every name that made it
- Gorgeous — and about to be everywhere
- Generation Alpha names (born 2013 onward)
- Three-syllable names with room to move
- all guides
Works in Spanish & Latino families too:
Where it comes from
From Mattityahu to Mateo
The story of Mateo
The name begins as Hebrew Mattityahu, borne by the tax collector who became one of the twelve apostles and whose name was attached to the first gospel. Greek writers rendered it Matthaios, Latin made it Matthaeus, and from there it spread with the Church across Europe, shedding syllables in each language it entered — Matthew in English, Matteo in Italian, Mateus in Portuguese, Mateo in Spanish. The Spanish form has a long literary footprint: Mateo Alemán, the Golden Age novelist, published under it in the sixteenth century. In the United States it arrived largely through Spanish-speaking families and has since been taken up far beyond them.
Meaning
Gift of God
From Hebrew Mattityahu, combining a word for gift with the divine name Yah.
Cultural footprint
Mateo Kovačić (b. 1994) — Champions League-winning midfielder
Source: Wikidata — the one source on this page that is not an official agency.
How the name formed
- Mattityahu
- Matthaios
- Matthaeus
- Mateo
Related forms: Matthew · Matteo · Mateus · Mathieu · Matthäus · Máté
Pronouncing Mateo
mah-TAY-oh
Three syllables with the stress in the middle. Some English speakers reduce the first vowel to muh-TAY-oh; both are heard and neither causes confusion.
Nicknames for Mateo
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
- 1904
- Most boys named
- 202311,293 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #6reached in 2023
- Change vs 2023
- −2.2%11,045 in 2025, from 11,293
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.
Mateo in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Matthew in English — same name
- Matteo in Italian — same name
- Mateus in Portuguese — same name
- Mathieu in French — same name
- Matthäus in German — same name
- Máté in Hungarian — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Florida. International figures from Statistics Canada. Sources
Mateos among us
people named Mateo are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 155 born in 2025 was named Mateo
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Mateo
- #8
- Mateo on the 2025 chart
- #5
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Mateo went to 11,045 boys in 2025, but Matteo is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 13,500, which makes it the 5th most-given boys’ name of the year — 3 places above the chart.
- Mateo11,045
- Matteo2,455
About 1 boy in 127 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 155 for Mateo 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 Donald test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Mateo's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Donald climbed just as high around 1934, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Donald's path sketches the road Mateo is walking now.
Mateo is climbing fast right now. Steep climbs tend to come with steep descents — the quicker a name arrives, the more firmly it belongs to its moment.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Mateo is headed
Mateo 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.
Mateo beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Mateo in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Recognizable in Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and English through its close cousins, so it travels between languages without translation.
- Spelled the way it sounds in both Spanish and English — a reader who has never seen it can usually say it.
- A documented line running from Hebrew through Greek and Latin to the modern Spanish form, unbroken for two millennia.
- Established short forms already in real use: Teo, Mati, and Matt in English-speaking settings.
- Mateo and the Italian Matteo are constantly confused. Expect to spell it out, and to see the double-t version on forms and name tags.
- Many boys of this very young generation carry it, so a classroom may hold more than one. That fades as the wave moves through school.
- English speakers who know Matthew sometimes default to Matt, which loses the Spanish shape of the name if that matters to you.
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What they receive
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Mateo
Masculine · #8 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Mateos are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 125,000 people named Mateo are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Mateo?
- Mateo is the most-used spelling in US records — 11,045 of the 13,500 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Matteo.
- How popular is the name Mateo in 2025?
- Mateo ranks #8 among US boy names in 2025, with 11,045 babies given the name.
- How common is the name Mateo?
- About 1 in every 155 US boys born in 2025 was named Mateo — 11,045 in all.
- Will my child share the name Mateo with classmates?
- Roughly 1 in 6 classrooms will have a child named Mateo.
Ranked beside Mateo
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Elijah#7 · William#9 · James#6 · Lucas#10 · Henry#5 · Benjamin#11 · Levi#12 · Theodore#4
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Mateo? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Mateo and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration; international figures from national statistics agencies. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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