Maud
Feminine · “mighty in battle”
Maud is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 13,159 girls against 31 boys since 1880.
Maud is the older of the two spellings, the one the medieval chronicles use. It is Matilda as English actually said it for four hundred years, before anyone thought to add a decorative final e.
How old is the name Maud?
Maud was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Maud alive today was born around 1895, making them about 130 years old. About 600 people named Maud are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Maud most popular?
Maud peaked in 1883, reaching #68 nationally. See the whole 1883 chart.
Maud appears on these lists:
Where it comes from
From Mahthildis to Maud
The story of Maud
Matilda arrived in England with the Conqueror's wife and was carried by queens for two centuries, but the written form and the spoken one drifted apart almost immediately: chroniclers writing Matilda were recording women everyone called Mahalt, then Maud. Victorian England revived it deliberately, and a long narrative poem published in 1855, whose most quoted line is an invitation into a garden, put the name in front of an enormous readership. American use peaked in the 1880s.
Meaning
mighty in battle
From the Germanic maht, 'might', and hild, 'battle' — a standard two-element compound of the kind Frankish and Saxon nobility built their names from. Both halves are ordinary words.
How the name formed
- Mahthildis
- Matilda
- Mahalt
- Maud
Related forms: Mathilde · Mahaut · Mathilda · Maude
Pronouncing Maud
MAWD
One syllable, rhyming with 'clawed'. Maud and Maude are said identically.
Nicknames for Maud
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
- 1886478 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #68reached in 1883
- Change vs 2018
- +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.
Maud in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Mathilde in German — related form
- Mahaut in French — related form
- Mathilda in Swedish — related form
- Maude in English — spelling variant
Mauds among us
people named Maud 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
Maud has already lived its whole cycle: it rose, had its era, and has stepped off the charts. The fashion question is behind it — what lies ahead is the waiting room where revivals begin, once a name's first generation has grown distant enough for it to sound fresh again.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- The shorter spelling is the historically older one, which is unusual and worth knowing.
- One syllable, firm, and impossible to mispronounce.
- Matilda is available behind it as a formal form with a thousand years of use.
- Maud and Maude are both correct, so the spelling will always be asked for.
- It is a strongly Victorian sound and carries that period plainly.
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What they receive
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Maud
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Mauds 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 Maud are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Maud in 2025?
- Maud is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Maud with classmates?
- Maud 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 Maud? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Maud and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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