Mathew
Masculine · “Gift of Yahweh”
Mathew is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 77,538 boys against 207 girls since 1880.
Mathew is the older English spelling of a name the language has carried since the Middle Ages — Wycliffe's translators wrote it Matheu, with a single t, long before Latin scholarship put the second one back. Said aloud there is no difference at all: two syllables, the soft th, the open finish. It shortens to Matt the same way it has for centuries.
How old is the name Mathew?
Mathew was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Mathew alive today was born around 1987, making them about 38 years old. About 68,000 people named Mathew are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Mathew most popular?
Mathew peaked in 1984, reaching #139 nationally. Today it ranks #973, 834 places below that high. See the whole 1984 chart.
Mathew appears on this list:
Where it comes from
From Mattityahu to Mathew
The story of Mathew
The name begins as Hebrew Mattityahu, borne by figures in the Hebrew scriptures, and reached Europe through the Greek Matthaios and Latin Matthaeus of the New Testament, where it belongs to the tax collector who becomes an apostle and gives his name to the first gospel. Medieval England took it up and wrote it its own way — Mathew, Matheu — and that single-t form was ordinary for generations. Later scholars restyled the spelling after the Latin and Greek, and Matthew became the standard. Mathew never disappeared; it stayed in parish registers, in surnames like Mathews and Mathewson, and has been given steadily to American boys across the whole span of the records.
Meaning
Gift of Yahweh
From the Hebrew Mattityahu, built from the elements for 'gift' and the divine name.
How the name formed
- Mattityahu
- Matthaios
- Matthaeus
- Mathew
- Matthew
Related forms: Mateo · Matteo · Matthieu · Matthäus · Mateusz · Mattityahu
Pronouncing Mathew
MATH-yoo
Identical to Matthew — the missing t changes nothing in speech. Stress falls on the first syllable.
Nicknames for Mathew
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 boys named
- 19892,162 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #139reached in 1984
- Change vs 2022
- −13.3%235 in 2025, from 271
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.
Mathew in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Mateo in Spanish — same name
- Matteo in Italian — same name
- Matthieu in French — same name
- Matthäus in German — same name
- Mateusz in Polish — same name
- Mattityahu in Hebrew — transliteration
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, New York.
Mathews among us
people named Mathew are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 7,268 born in 2025 was named Mathew
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Mathew
- #973
- Mathew on the 2025 chart
- #34
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Mathew went to 235 boys in 2025, but Matthew is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 7,238, which makes it the 34th most-given boys’ name of the year — 939 places above the chart.
- Matthew7,003
- Mathew235
About 1 boy in 236 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 7,268 for Mathew 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 Kirk test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Mathew's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Kirk climbed just as high around 1962, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Kirk's path sketches the road Mathew is walking now.
Mathew 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 Mathew is headed
Mathew is easing off slowly — about 17% 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.
Mathew beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Mathew in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Pronounced exactly like Matthew, so no one will ever hesitate over saying it, even when they pause over the spelling.
- Comes with Matt already attached — a short form in unbroken use, and a full name in its own right.
- Documented in English since the Middle Ages, and present in American records across their entire span.
- Has a ready equivalent in most European languages: Mateo, Matteo, Matthieu, Mateusz.
- The two-t Matthew is the default in nearly every reader's head, so this spelling will be corrected on forms, in email addresses and by autocorrect for life. Most Mathews learn to spell it out early and think little of it.
- Matt is shared ground. In any room of a certain age there are likely other Matts, all of them arriving from Matthew.
- The full spelling is stepping back from where it once stood, while the name behind it remains completely familiar — a combination that means recognition without repetition in a classroom.
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Mathew
Masculine · #973 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Mathews are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 68,000 people named Mathew are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Mathew?
- Mathew is one of 2 recorded spellings. Matthew is the more common one — 7,003 births in 2025 against 235 for Mathew.
- How popular is the name Mathew in 2025?
- Mathew ranks #973 among US boy names in 2025, with 235 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Mathew?
- About 1 in every 7,268 US boys born in 2025 was named Mathew — 235 in all.
- Will my child share the name Mathew with classmates?
- Mathew will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Mathew
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Kaycen#973 · Gage#973 · Quinton#973 · Harlem#970 · Van#970 · Beaux#970 · Azlan#977 · Alec#977
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Mathew? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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