Mateo vs Matthews
American parents have registered 126,778 Mateos since 1880, against 1,605 Matthewses. Mateo is still ahead, with 11,057 babies in 2025.
Babies given each name, 1880–2025
Mateo Matthews
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
Of the 121 years in which either name was published, Mateo for 87 years and Matthews for 34 years. The lead changed hands 31 times.
- 1882–1919 Matthews ahead, apart from 2 short spells
- 1924–1940 Mateo ahead, apart from one short spell
- 1950–1954 Matthews ahead
- 1955–1961 Mateo ahead, apart from one short spell
- 1965–1968 Matthews ahead
- 1969–2025 Mateo ahead, apart from one short spell
21 shorter spells of a year or two are folded into the spans above rather than listed separately.
Side by side
| Mateo | Matthews | |
|---|---|---|
| Total US births | 126,778 | 1,605 |
| Most in one year | 11,355 | 41 |
| Babies in 2025 | 11,057 | 10 |
| Estimated living today | 125,000 | 1,100 |
| Median age today | 6 | 37 |
| Peak year | 2024 | 1988 |
| Best rank | 7th boys | 1,706th boys |
| Rank in 2025 | 8th | 7,679th |
| First recorded | 1904 | 1882 |
| Girls / boys | 85 / 126,693 | 0 / 1,605 |
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 Matthewses alive today are over 37; half the Mateos are over 6. That is 31 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 | Mateo | Matthews |
|---|---|---|
| France | 22,725 Matéo | 75 |
| England and Wales | 2,874 | 7 |
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: Mateo and Matthews.