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Madeline vs Madelyne

American parents have registered 207,630 Madelines since 1880, against 3,502 Madelynes. Madeline is still ahead, with 3,086 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Madeline Madelyne

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 1975, when Madeline had 270 and Madelyne had 13.

Side by side

  Madeline Madelyne
Total US births 207,6303,502
Most in one year 5,869129
Babies in 2025 3,08681
Estimated living today 158,0003,000
Median age today 2221
Peak year 19982000
Best rank 50th girls1,425th girls
Rank in 2025 81st2,256th
First recorded 18801911
Girls / boys 207,385 / 2453,502 / 0

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.

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 Madeline Madelyne
England and Wales 6,49842
France 4,105300

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: Madeline and Madelyne.