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Madaline vs Madeline

American parents have registered 207,630 Madelines since 1880, against 4,990 Madalines. Madeline is still ahead, with 3,086 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Madaline against Madeline, 1880 to 2025 0 1.5k 3k 4.5k 6k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Madaline Madeline

Each line is every baby given the name that year, girls and boys added together — the only count that means the same thing for both names. A line breaks where the name fell below five babies in a year — the point at which the SSA stops publishing it — rather than being drawn through a figure nobody published. A single published year in a gap shows as a dot.

Who was ahead

Madeline has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1880 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 1890, when Madaline had 12 and Madeline had 96.

Side by side

  Madaline Madeline
Total US births 4,990207,630
Most in one year 1145,869
Babies in 2025 203,086
Estimated living today 2,600158,000
Median age today 2522
Peak year 19181998
Best rank 666th girls50th girls
Rank in 2025 5,917th81st
First recorded 18851880
Girls / boys 4,990 / 0207,385 / 245

A rank is a position within one sex’s list for one year, so the two rank rows are not subtracted from one another and the winning column is not marked on them. The living figure is a life-table estimate, not a count.

Which name is older

Half of the Madalines alive today are over 25; half the Madelines are over 22. That is 3 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Where each one is strongest

How much commoner the name is in that state than it is nationally, from births recorded since 1910.

Both names abroad

Countries whose statistics office publishes both names, so the comparison can be made somewhere other than the United States.

Country Madaline Madeline
England and Wales 1386,498

Every spelling a country files separately is added together, over whatever years that country publishes — which is not the same range in any two of them, so read the columns against each other and not the rows.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

Social Security Administration birth records, 1880–2025, public domain. Full histories: Madaline and Madeline.