Humanverse

Madeline vs Madina

American parents have registered 207,630 Madelines since 1880, against 1,541 Madinas. Madeline is still ahead, with 3,086 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Madeline Madina

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 1980, when Madeline had 232 and Madina had 10.

Side by side

  Madeline Madina
Total US births 207,6301,541
Most in one year 5,86985
Babies in 2025 3,08679
Estimated living today 158,0001,500
Median age today 2211
Peak year 19982023
Best rank 50th girls2,210th girls
Rank in 2025 81st2,298th
First recorded 18801966
Girls / boys 207,385 / 2451,541 / 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.

Which name is older

Half of the Madelines alive today are over 22; half the Madinas are over 11. That is 11 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 Madeline Madina
England and Wales 6,498663
France 4,1051,150
Belgium 39389
Switzerland 5635
Poland 220

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 Madina.