Maude
Feminine · “mighty in battle”
Maude is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 45,754 girls against 133 boys since 1880.
Maude is what medieval English mouths did to Matilda. The full name arrived with the Normans and was worn down over two centuries of daily use into something shorter and blunter, and the worn form outlived the original in England for a long stretch.
How old is the name Maude?
Maude was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Maude alive today was born around 1901, making them about 124 years old. About 2,800 people named Maude are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Maude most popular?
Maude peaked in 1882, reaching #20 nationally. Today it ranks #3342, 3,322 places below that high. See the whole 1882 chart.
Maude appears on these lists:
Where it comes from
From Mahthildis to Maude
The story of Maude
Matilda came to England with the Conqueror's wife and was carried by a line of queens after her, including the Empress Matilda who fought her cousin for the throne through nineteen years of civil war — and who is called Maud in most of the chronicles, because that is what people actually said. The spoken form went its own way: Mahalt, then Maud, then Maude with a decorative final e. By the nineteenth century Maude was a name in its own right on both sides of the Atlantic, and it sat in the American top twenty in the 1880s.
Meaning
mighty in battle
From the Germanic maht, 'might', and hild, 'battle'. It is a compound of the kind Frankish and Saxon nobility favored, where both halves are plain words and the sense is the sum of them.
How the name formed
- Mahthildis
- Matilda
- Mahalt
- Maud
- Maude
Related forms: Mathilde · Mahaut · Machteld · Maud
Pronouncing Maude
MAWD
One syllable, rhyming with 'clawed'. The final e is silent and purely decorative.
Nicknames for Maude
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
- 18891,293 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #20reached in 1882
- Change vs 2022
- +24.3%46 in 2025, from 37
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.
Maude in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Mathilde in German — related form
- Mahaut in French — related form
- Machteld in Dutch — related form
- Maud in English — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Utah.
Maudes among us
people named Maude are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 34,941 born in 2025 was named Maude
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
Fashion outlook
Maude 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 Maude is headed
Maude looks set to keep climbing gently, with roughly 33% more babies a year by 2030 if the current curve holds.
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.
Maude beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Maude in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- One syllable, unmistakable, and impossible to shorten further — it is already the short version of something.
- Nearly a thousand years of documented English use, with Matilda available as the formal form.
- It is rare now without being invented, which is a combination not many names manage.
- Maud and Maude are both historically correct spellings, so expect to specify which.
- The sound is firmly Victorian to most English-speaking ears and carries that period with it.
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What they receive
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Maude
Feminine · #3342 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Maudes are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 2,800 people named Maude are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Maude in 2025?
- Maude ranks #3342 among US girl names in 2025, with 46 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Maude?
- About 1 in every 34,941 US girls born in 2025 was named Maude — 46 in all.
- Will my child share the name Maude with classmates?
- Maude will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Maude
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Zorah#3342 · Monique#3342 · Kinleigh#3342 · Emmelyn#3342 · Zyana#3342 · Swara#3342 · Azaleah#3342 · Elenora#3342
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Maude? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Maude and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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